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TENTS OF THE MIGHTY 









TENTS 
OF THE 
MIGHTY 

DONALD RICHBERG 

Author of “The Shadow Men,” “A Man 
of Purpose,” etc. 

With A Foreword By 
PAUL U. KELLOGG 



Willett, Clark & Colby 

NEW YORK 193° CHICAGO 




















x t~- 743 

.ffaa. 


Copyright 1930 by 
WILLETT, CLARK & COLBY 


Manufactured in The U. S. A. by The Plimpton Press 
Norwood, Mass.-LaPorte, Ind. 


Acknowledgment is gratefully 
made to the Survey Graphic 
for permission to reprint such 
parts of this book (including 
illustrations) as appeared seri¬ 
ally in that magazine. 

... 


Publishers 

WILLETT, CLARK & COLBY 

Chicago: 440 South Dearborn Street 
New York: 200 Fifth Avenue 




TO FLORENCE 

whose steadfast and sympathetic 
aid to her husband passes 
all understanding 


FOREWORD 

In his campus days, Donald Richberg won 
his college letter on the track; and his narrative 
of American experience has all the resiliency of 
a relay race. Sheerly as a “true story 55 it offers 
rattling good entertainment; but the analogy 
holds whether we think of it in terms of his own 
course, baffled in one lap only to swing ahead in 
the next, or whether we think of it in terms of the 
changing incarnations of the democratic impulse 
in our times. These he treats at once warmly, 
with the zest of a participant, and whimsically, 
with the philosophic edge a vivisectionist might 
bring to the nine lives of a cat. 

He is wrong at one point. We count it a rare 
stroke that my brother and I induced him to 
write this book; but no one who knows the tough 
„ insurgency of which he is made will believe for 
one minute that it was written “under stern 
command. 55 Rather he wrote it in response to 
eager insistence that this realistic chronicle of 
our generation “on the march 55 should be told 


Foreword 


through the intimate encounters of one who had 
spent twenty-five years in the tents of those 
mighty who, one and another, have assumed to 
tell us whither we should go. 

For here in their encampments has been this 
modern minstrel with a marshal’s baton in his 
hip pocket; a man with a penchant for writing, 
off and on, political platforms, popular songs, 
novels, learned articles in legal and economic re¬ 
views—and light and serious verses. Surely a law¬ 
yer of national reputation, with deeply grounded 
convictions, who nevertheless is constantly amused 
at himself and all other humans, pitting them¬ 
selves against unknown and largely unrealized 
forces, ought to write history as well as to help 
make it. Moreover, he has had a bent that way. 
When early in his career he was the progressive 
candidate for prosecuting attorney, the Uni¬ 
versity Club of Chicago was producing his comic 
opera as its annual show. Ten years later when 
he was fighting for the railway labor unions 
against the injunction of Attorney-General 
Daugherty, his newly published novel of a senti¬ 
mental political martyr puzzled the reviewers. 
One called it “the unforgettable portrait of a 
soul”; another, a “masterpiece of burlesque.” 
viii 





Foreword 


We first discussed the project of this book in that 
piping time, sufficiently identified by the names 
of our first two post-war presidents, when the'citi- 
zenship of these United States seemed to have 
pitched camp for a long season among the flesh 
pots of prosperity. They were a bit winded after 
their charge to make the world safe. It was a 
period of disillusionment, sophistication, sag. 
“What is worth fighting for in American life?” 
we asked of a jury of men and women whose 
qualification was insight rather than ignorance, 
and who were conscious of new or resurgent 
stirrings among men. 

The juror at the end of our front row proved 
to be a whole panel in himself. It would have 
been sheer waste to have let him off with a snap 
verdict. His article must become a series, his 
series a book. Before him had passed a pageant 
of strangely mixed leaders in every field of 
national life—Roosevelt and Newton Baker, 
Michelson and Insull, Jane Addams and La 
Follette, Bryan and Darrow—through which had 
moved a man of religious faith and skeptic mind, 
always asking: “Why do we do this?” and 
“Where do we go from here?” Stored away in 
his correspondence files and memory were illumi- 
ix 




Foreword 


nating incidents, spotlight phrases, glimpses be¬ 
hind the scenes of great events, that shed a new 
and engaging light on the forces still struggling to 
master the thought and to direct the energies of 
the American people. 

Now the story has been written. From limi¬ 
tations of space only a part could be printed in 
Survey Graphic. It starts in a college fraternity 
at the turn of the century. It grows quickly into 
an insider’s account of the Progressive move¬ 
ment which came of age in the Roosevelt cam¬ 
paign of 1912, faltered in 1916, died politically 
when “normalcy” overwhelmed La Follette in 
1924. Social issues shifted from the ballot-box 
and this Chicago lawyer, still in his forties, put 
his mark on the railroad-valuation case before 
the Interstate Commerce Commission and the 
U. S. Supreme Court, which with its fabulous 
stakes has proved to be the prime legal battle 
between owners and users (of property) in our 
generation. His mark, also, on the develop¬ 
ment of a new structure of industrial relations in 
which the government, railway brotherhoods 
and the operators play their parts. Out of these 
experiences, out of his contacts with scientists and 
technicians, he searches out something to take 





Foreword 


the place of the moralities of Armageddon, the 
legalities of court action, the cleavages of class 
conflict. 

And it is here that I wish to come back to 
that analogy of the relay race with which I 
began. In spite of his exceptional qualities, 
Donald Richberg has gone through essentially 
the American course. He started at scratch in 
things of the spirit and the spiked shoes of the 
young materialists of 1930 line up along the same 
tape. He was caught up in the political militancy 
of the first decade of the 1 goo’s but the second 
saw him a lap ahead of its older leaders who had 
not his grasp of the industrial forces which were 
reconditioning the function of government. 

The third decade has seen him, with his sen¬ 
tience to scientific advance, a lap ahead of those 
who cling to an out-moded range of economic 
solutions. The essential youthfulness of his ap¬ 
proach has spanned the three decades in an era 
of transition; and he is ready not only to strike 
hands with an oncoming generation, but to run 
the course in advance of them. The torch he 
carries into this new decade is a kindling aware¬ 
ness of the dynamic which has stirred all these 
great currents in our social life—an epic sense of 


xi 




Foreword 


common adventure—the flare for matching in¬ 
novating word with concerted deed in a sequence 
of new worlds. 

From the first to the last page this is a fasci¬ 
nating prose ballad of the leadership of yesterday 
and today, shot through with prophetic glimpses 
of the future that may well inspire others to 
follow the “new captaincies 55 under whose stand¬ 
ards he hopes that mankind may yet realize some 
of its “old dreams. 55 Whether they agree or dis¬ 
agree with his philosophy, readers of every variety 
of social and political faith will enjoy this racy, 
good-humored tale which he describes with 
ironic inaccuracy as the biography of an Un¬ 
known Soldier. 

PAUL U. KELLOGG 


xii 




CONTENTS 

Foreword vii 

I 

When We Were Flaming 
Youth 3 

II 

We Thought It Was 
Armageddon 31 

III 

The Four Horsemen Came 63 

IV 

The Spoils of Normalcy lo3 

V 

The Judicial Barricades 141 

VI 

Trying to Bury the Big 
Stick 179 

VII 

New Captains and Old 
Dreams 2o7 

VIII 

The Long Road Up 235 


DRAWINGS BY I. H. DONAHEY 














■■s. 


I 

WHEN WE WERE FLAMING 

YOUTH 



DON’T KNOW WHAT THE MOTHERS OF THESE YOUNG 
GIRLS ARE THINKING OF!” 



















WHEN WE WERE FLAMING 
YOUTH 

The ballroom of the summer hotel was 
crowded that hot night in July, 1902. Young 
men and women, oppressed with heavy heads 
of hair and too much clothing, clung moistly to¬ 
gether and swayed to the sweet rapture of the 
Dream of Heaven waltz, wherein an Oshkosh 
cornetist had blared his passions to the world. 

The barroom was also crowded. In one cor¬ 
ner a pale, world-weary youngster from New 
York, New Haven and Hartford was ordering 
absinthe cocktails for a select gathering of eastern 
aristocracy. In the center of the room a broad, 
red-faced son of Wisconsin led a much larger 
crowd through the fifteenth repetition of “It’s 
always fair weather when good fellows get to¬ 
gether.” 

A national college fraternity was holding its 
annual convention and a cross-section of the 
“flaming youth” of my generation was here 
exhibiting some of the raw material of the lead- 
3 


Tents of the Mighty 


ership of the present day. Many of the older 
people lounging on the broad verandas shook 
their heads in ominous prophecy. 

“Pretty wild boys, it seems to me.” 

“Don’t know what the mothers of these young 
girls are thinking of.” 



Newton D. Baker , back in igo2 , pointing a sharply accusing 
finger at the genial chairman 


“Did you hear that party come in from a 
moonlit sail after three o’clock this morning?” 

But a peek into the convention “in secret ses¬ 
sion” the following morning would have surprised 
the rocking-chair brigade. The old order was in 
4 













When We Were Flaming Youth 


control — its bell-wether a noted yachtsman of 
generous and pleasing personality. The new or¬ 
der was challenging the old at every stage in the 
proceedings. Standing out from the group of 
rebels, a thin, dark-haired young man, wearing 
glasses, pointed an accusing finger at the genial 



At the turn of the century . . . with a stein on the table and 
the sex question in the air 

chairman and lashed him with beautiful, stinging 
phrases. This was my first glimpse of Newton D. 
Baker, lover of peace and happy warrior, secre¬ 
tary of war in the “war to end war. 55 Beside him 
rose Frederic C. Howe, always radical but a little 
fired even in 1902. 


5 













Tents of the Mighty 


The fraternity convention pushed a steam¬ 
roller over the rebels that year, but the porch 
gossips would have understood the younger gen¬ 
eration better if they had heard the convention de¬ 
bates in the morning, instead of listening at night 
to whispers and laughter on the dark verandas, or 
ribald singing in the grillroom. At the turn of 
the century my generation was just rising into 
view — with a stein on the table and the sex ques¬ 
tion in the air. Within a few years its “youth 
movement” had flowered into a dominant pro- 
gressivism. Even the sordid politician, the dull 
pedant, the business profiteer, the witless lawyer 
and the graceless theologian were paying lip 
service to progress. This idealism carried the 
nation up long roads of scientific, industrial 
and political achievement into and through the 
terrific sustained effort of the World War — 
and collapsed under the burdens of reconstruc¬ 
tion. 

‘‘Where are we going?” 

It is a new generation that must answer the 
question. The tired eyes, shrunken muscles and 
hardened arteries which characterize so much 
of the surviving “progressive leadership” are in¬ 
capable. And this is well; because we need a 
6 





When We Were Flaming Youth 


new definition of progress. But if we seek to know 
where the new generation is going, we may find 
a clue in looking back over the road that my 
generation traveled — before its soul was spent 
and its idealism failed. 

This story will be written under stern com¬ 
mand. “Tell us what happened,” says the boss, 
who calls himself an editor but is really a fisher 
of men. “You started out a healthy young ma¬ 
terialist like a million others — and millions of 
you became vigorous idealists and fought the 
good fight and kept the faith; and great deeds 
were done for America — and humanity. Where 
were you going? Why did you stop? Are we 
going to move on again? If we do move, what 
will be the direction?” 

And so it happens that I have gone back over 
some thirty years, opening dusty files and reading 
faded letters, arguing out again old issues with 
Roosevelt, LaFollette, Bryan, Gompers and others 
who can no longer answer back. I have discussed 
these weather-beaten problems in different forms 
with Clarence Darrow and Jane Addams, with 
Hoover- and Coolidge, with Norris and Wheeler, 
with scientists like Michelson and Millikan, with 
7 





Tents of the Mighty 


financiers and business men controlling billions 
of money power, with labor leaders guiding 
myriads of men, with newspaper men reaching 
millions of readers. 

This has not been a sightseeing tour or an 
excursion of an inquiring reporter. I have been 
reviewing my own life and labor, that has brought 
me into close contact with the men and the forces 
that have shaped the last quarter-centurv of 
American life. Where are we going? — has been 
an ever-present question that had to be answered 
and that no one could answer. I have written 
platforms for political parties, keynote speeches 
for statesmen, laws for Congress and state legis¬ 
latures to pass, statements for public officials to 
issue, opinions for courts to deliver, books and 
articles to promote “good” causes — and always 
the question arose: What is progress? ! Always 
it seemed as though a great wind were blowing. 
We might steer our course with it, but we could 
not run against it. So we must consider and 
debate on every occasion: Which way is the wind 
blowing? How far to the right or to the left can 
we steer? How far should we steer? Where do 
we want to go? And finally, regardless of our 
wishes, where are we going? 

8 



When We Were Flaming Youth 


“Don’t try to answer the questions,” says the 
boss. “Just write what you have seen happen and 
let us draw our own conclusions. The narrative 
of a minor actor in great events may give a b 
understanding than the somewhat biased writings 
of the stars. Also, you should write the story now 
while your eyes are young enough to see things 
as you lived them, before you begin to view them 
through the distorting lenses of old age.” 

Thus begins an experiment in democracy. We 
bury the Unknown Soldier as a tribute to those 
who served and died unhonored and unsung. 
Following the same idea, let an unknown soldier 
embalm himself amid the autobiographies of the 
generals as a reminder that the history of democ¬ 
racy should be read, not in the lengthened shad¬ 
ows of the lives of the great, but in the shorter 
shadows cast by average men. To this end I will 
run through “the battles, sieges, fortunes that I 
have passed . . . even from my boyish days to 
the very moment that he bade me tell it.” 

Looking back upon Chicago of the World’s 
Fair era (1893) it appears that the hard-bitten 
materialists who created the post-Civil War pros¬ 
perity were as puzzled over their children as we 
are now perplexed by ours. Quite shocking and 
9 





Tents of the Mighty 


pleasing were the short skirts which the high-school 
girls wore when riding bicycles in 1896. The 
“wild boys” drank and smoked and made love — 



Quite shocking and pleasing were the short skirts which the high- 
school girls wore when riding bicycles in i8g6 

“necking” is only a change in language. Less 
daring youths of both sexes asserted a scandalous 
independence of parents (and a more scandalous 
dependence upon them). “I didn’t ask to be 
10 








When We Were Flaming Youth 


born.” “The world owes me a living.” “We 
only live once; let’s have a good time now.” This 
was the burden of many an exchange between 
adolescents. 

What inspiration toward better thinking were 
we receiving from our parents who bowed down 
in daily worship of Things? “Praise John from 
whom oil blessings flow” was being sung with 
irreverent candor by the students of the new 
University of Chicago. The educators and the 
clergy were begging doles from commercial brig¬ 
ands (then as now) while clear-eyed youth sneered 
and poked fun (then as now). Mr. Yerkes, after 
a successful career of piracy and corruption, was 
pleased to give the new university the largest 
telescope in the world. Per aspera ad astra. 

The stench of the stockyards flooded the 
choicest residence neighborhoods, competing in¬ 
effectively with the stench of local politics. The 
red-light district was growing right along with 
the city, snuggling close to the respectability 
which fostered it. Hold-up men roamed the 
streets at night and perennial crime waves pro¬ 
vided a steady flow of stories to spice the regular 
news of politics, disaster, money-making and so¬ 
cial scandal. Staid old people constantly ex- 
ii 





Tents of the Mighty 


pressed wonder as to “what things are coming to 55 
(then as now). 

Yet I remember little groups of “flaming 
youth” that sat until three o’clock in the morning 
arguing over questions of abstract right and 
wrong, debating about creation and evolution and 
God and eternity. My thoughts turn back to a 
prize sonnet on Infinity which I wrote at this 
time — “onward we move into the gray.” Let 
me hasten to add that among those who fought 
with me over its philosophy were the shortstop on 
the baseball nine and the captain of the tennis 
team; and that the author won his college letter 
on the track. We were not exactly mollycoddles 
and no professor ever called us “grinds.” We 
were healthy young materialists , just beginning 
to question the value of the ideas that had come 
with mother’s milk and father’s money. The 
healthy young materialists of today show signs 
of the same questioning. 

Rumblings of a “revolt of youth” were audible 
when I graduated from the University of Chicago 
in 1901 and a miniature advance storm appeared 
in that fraternity convention of 1902 with which 
I began. 


12 





When We Were Flaming Youth 


“What is it all about?” asked my roommate. 

“Oh, it’s just a new gang that wants to put 
out an old gang and run the show,” was my re¬ 
sponse, reflecting the surface cynicism of the very 
young collegian (then as now). 

“That answers nothing,” was his retort. 
“Every generation is a new gang ordained to 
throw out the old gang. The fellows that toady 
to the old crowd are shirking their job. It’s our 
job to bring in new ideas, to clean house, to tear 
down old buildings and to put up better ones. 
If this Baker crowd is right, I’m going to join 
them.” 

We decided that the Baker crowd was “right” 
then — and, by the same token, it is pretty sure 
to be “wrong” now. Its spirit of insurgency had 
a lasting quality but the oncoming generation 
must have something better to offer than the 
progressivism of either Roosevelt or Wilson. 

The plunge from college into business drives 
the “idealistic nonsense” out of many a young 
head. A new desire to be practical and successful 
(intensified often, as in my case, by family obli¬ 
gations) takes possession of the mind. Within a 
few days of graduation from Harvard Law School 
in 1904, I passed the Illinois bar examinations 
13 




Tents of the Mighty 


and began practicing with my father. What an 
interesting new world it was! Full of hard- 
headed, soft-hearted men viciously fighting for 
money and power and spending their gains for 
the most part with sentimental generosity. At 
first I thought my father an exception, slugging 
his way to a victory and then scattering the profits 
immediately among his none-too-grateful de¬ 
pendents. Gradually I learned that this was the 
accepted code. 

PoliticaJ issues an d , mor alities, soon interested 
me. Our office represented the city treasurer and 
the board of assessors for many years. We were 
constantly engaged in efforts either to milk the 
public or to protect it, the latter performance ap¬ 
parently justifying the first. The city treasurer at 
that time paid his office expense and made what 
he could out of the use of public money. The 
principal bankers signed the treasurer’s bond. 
It was our job as lawyers to protect the bankers 
from any liability through misuse of funds. In 
this capacity, we were watchdogs of the treasury. 
But the bankers also made an agreement whereby 
they paid interest to the treasurer on public money 
deposited. Thus it was also our job to see that 
14 








When We Were Flaming Youth 


the treasurer collected as much money as pos¬ 
sible. The office was worth $200,000 to a well- 
advised treasurer! 

Later the law was changed so that the interest 
was paid to the city. But the treasurer could 
favor banks with large inactive deposits or dis¬ 
favor them with active accounts. So private 
agreements assured the treasurer of a fair reward 
for valuable favors. But “gentlemen’s agree¬ 
ments” are dangerous. One year certain gentle¬ 
men bankers refused to pay their share of the 
“interest split.” Curiously enough the one banker 
who demanded most profanely and sincerely that 
the agreement should be kept was John R. Walsh, 
who was later sent to jail for violating the bank¬ 
ing laws directly, in the same way that other banks 
were violating them indirectly. Candor and sim¬ 
plicity in law violation is not good business prac¬ 
tice, I discovered soon in the law office. 

Another city treasurer was sued for a large 
amount of money which he had legally retained. 
For a long period he faced not only bankruptcy, 
but loss of a well-founded public respect and the 
ruin of his political future. When we won the 
case we were exceptionally pleased. Long after¬ 
ward the clerk of the Supreme Court, a personal 
15 




Tents of the Mighty 


friend of our client, related with much pride how 
he had taken the judge who was writing the opin¬ 
ion for a buggy ride, how he had explained what 
a splendid character our client was, and that he 
would be ruined by an adverse decision, how he 
had argued the law and the facts with tears in 
his eyes and voice, until he felt sure that he had 
brought the judge around to his point of view — 
and won our case for us. Thus I learned that a 
lawyer does not always know why he wins or 
loses a case. 

During many years 5 service as attorney for the 
board of assessors, I obtained an intimate knowl- 
^ edge of how political parties are financed. The 
power to tax is well described as the power to 
destroy; and the taxation laws bestow this power 
most effectively. A strict enforcement of the 
revenue laws of Illinois (and many other states) 
would have outrageous consequences. Estates, 
trust funds, small householders and business enter¬ 
prises would be literally plundered. Since no¬ 
body really wants the taxation laws enforced, they 
are disregarded by common consent. The tax offi¬ 
cials are expected to do “what is right 55 ; that is, 
to assess enough taxes to meet public needs and 
to spread the burden around the community so 
16 




When We Were Flaming Youth 


that it will not fall too heavily on any one. But 
since this is government by favor instead of by 
law, naturally some persons can be exceptionally 
favored. Logically, those who make campaign 
contributions will be recognized as specially de¬ 
serving, together with thoughtful friends who 
provide profitable business for the assessors. A 
lawyer who was a tax official built up a stupen¬ 
dous clientele while in office, and acquired a for¬ 
tune. He has made large contributions to higher 
education and has become a national leader in 
his church and political party. Another tax offi¬ 
cial, being a business man who somehow never 
could make business pay, became the head of a 
great corporation and the chief collector of na¬ 
tional and local campaign funds. 

Tax exemption by favor is one thing, but ex¬ 
emption by law yields no profit. So a suit was 
brought to tax the two principal newspapers, the 
largest bank and other wealthy concerns occupy¬ 
ing exempt public property under ninety-nine- 
year leases. We claimed these private leaseholds 
were taxable, and the leases required the lessees 
to pay all taxes. The case involved more than 
a million dollars a year in taxes and, against 
the acknowledged leader of the bar, we won a 
17 




Tents of the Mighty 


unanimous decision in the state Supreme Court. 
Shortly thereafter a lawyer of notable political 
influence, chief adviser for the largest utilities, 
filed a petition for rehearing, privately informing 
us that he thought the case had been “grossly 
mismanaged. 55 He must have managed it better, 
because four judges out of seven changed their 
opinions on rehearing and upheld the exemption. 

The law practice of my early years was not all 
political. We represented coal companies, insur¬ 
ance companies, newspapers, department stores, 
estates, and individuals both rich and poor. The 
human contacts were always more interesting to 
me than the cases. I can remember a late evening 
discussion with Stuyvesant Fish, then in a death 
grapple with E. H. Harriman. The question in¬ 
volved was whether to spend five thousand dollars 
more for legal aid in support of his lawsuit for 
control of the Illinois Central. X T have a very 
expensive wife, 55 sighed Mr. Fish. The money 
was not spent and Harriman won. 

There comes to mind the pathetic picture of 
the banker Walsh sitting in his library facing 
prison at the end of a long life of ruthless war 
against all who blocked his path. “What is there 
18 




When We Were Flaming Youth 


for me today? Three meals and a place to sleep. 
I’ve been working for my boys. It’s them Fm 
thinking about. 55 His long, trembling fingers 
wove in and out incessantly. I thought of them 
years later when I wrote a verse: c ‘Empty hands 
that had grasped all in vain. 55 

Then there was John Alexander Dowie, 
founder of Zion City. I saw him in his pride and 
glory, building his church in Chicago; saw him 
descend upon New York to bring salvation to the 
“wanton city 55 ; listened to him rave at the news¬ 
papers, trampling on them as he stormed up and 
down his truly “palatial 55 suite in the Hotel Plaza; 
watched him create his Zion City, where there 
should be no tobacco, no alcohol, no pork, no 
oysters — and most important of all, where the ' 
will of Dowie should be law, although he called 
it “the will of God. 55 Dowie built a prosperous 
city on the lake shore half way between Milwau¬ 
kee and Chicago or, as he put it, “half way be¬ 
tween Beer and Babel. 55 Then disease came to 
him — the apostle of divine healing — and he 
died, and I helped his widow and son save a very 
small fortune out of the ruin of a great dream of 
riches and power — and religion. 

Somehow Dowie is linked in my mind with a 

*9 




Tents of the Mighty 


much greater man, President Harper of the Uni¬ 
versity of Chicago. They were the two most 
powerful personalities with whom I associated in 
my youth — utterly different and yet remarkably 
alike. After I had helped to clear up the wreck¬ 
age of Dowie’s failure, I spoke for the alumni at 
the dedication of the library reared as a memo¬ 
rial to Harper’s success. The relentless energy 
with which he built his “city gray that ne’er shall 
die” scared careful trustees and shocked pious 
bookkeepers. But his achievements were bigger 
than his deficits; and, while the cancer specialists 
watched with awe, and private secretaries worked 
all night with reddened eyes, he drove on and on 
to win his game before the early, cruel call of 
time. Very near and very far apart ran the ways 
of the fanatic faith-healer of Zion City and the 
enthusiastic truth-seeker on the Midway. 

The early years of law practice are blurred as 
I look back; far less distinct than previous years 
at school. They were meaningless years of grop¬ 
ing; and the fog of an uncertain purpose hangs 
over them still. Days of poring over books and 
dictating interminable arguments. Days of nerv¬ 
ous tension and strain, arguing motions and trying 
cases in stuffy court-rooms. Days of wrangling 
20 




When We Were Flaming Youth 


and worrying over a thousand petty questions of 
no real importance. 

These days were followed by nights of smoking 
and drinking and dancing and eating and singing 
and wasting time in all sorts of pleasant ways. 
Frequently there were tennis games in the summer 
afternoons. Sometimes, in the nude democracy 
of the shower-bath, Professor Millikan would try 
to explain the electron to a young lawyer whose 
interest was greater than his comprehension. Or 
Professor Michelson would take me down into the 
basement of his nearby laboratory and talk in 
simple terms about a machine that ran night and 
day scratching lines on a metal plate — by which 
light could be analyzed and secrets of infinite 
space be revealed. And mostly I marveled at the 
everlasting patience and courage of these men 
who won Nobel prizes — not by flashes of genius, 
but by relentless, unceasing work, illuminated by 
godlike imagination and sustained by childlike 
faith. 

There were private theatricals at the clubs in 
the winter. I wrote short sketches and long plays, 
and songs and verses — all of little consequence; 
but it was amusing. Once I wrote a full comic 
opera, which was first presented by my college 
21 





Tents of the Mighty 


fraternity. Later it was revised and produced 
nobly by the University Club — the authorship 
being concealed, because the author happened to 
be the progressive candidate for state’s attorney 
just at that time. But in 1912, it was not sus¬ 
pected that a song-writer could be wafted into 
office on his own melodies. We were trying to 
convince the voters that an earnest young man, 
aged thirty-one, would make a better pro secuto r 
of crooked politicians than a seasoned veteran 
of politics. The voters were not convinced. 

Just what had transformed a pleasure-seeking, 
fairly prosperous lawyer, with a conservative cli¬ 
entele, into a reform candidate, is hard to de¬ 
scribe briefly. Perhaps it may be called mental 
indigestion. It had become quite clear to me in 
the first years of practice that I didn’t want to 
serve the people who would pay me best for serv¬ 
ing them. The legal sophistries which are avail¬ 
able to justify any sort of conduct, so that a client 
can be supported in anything he does, would 
sicken any intelligent person who had not been 
rendered immune through a long course of men¬ 
tal poisoning. 

My early resentments at a low professional 
standard were expressed in an article that ap- 
22 








When We Were Flaming Youth 


peared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1909, entitled 
The Lawyer’s Function. The law as a philosoph¬ 
ical study is very interesting. The law as a system 
of workable rules of human conduct is a project 
worthy of the highest endeavor. But that mod¬ 
ern practice of the law, which calls principally for 
mental ingenuity to help a client do anything he 
wants to do, seemed to me intellectually one of 
the most degrading occupations in the category 
of respectable employments. It seemed that the' 
super-lawyer should have the brains of a Machia- 
velli, the hide of a walrus, and no moral convic¬ 
tions whatsoever! Yet from a wide acquaintance 
with those who have made money and achieved 
some reputation at the bar, and from my own 
experience, I know that it is possible to succeed 
to a reasonable extent without approaching or 
even respecting the qualities which would seem 
to stamp one’s services with the highest market 
value. 

As an early symptom of revolt, I published 
articles in 1906 and 1907 showing that if any one 
wanted to stop corporate law-breaking, it could 
be done by imprisoning a corporation — that is, 
by putting it into receivership under government 
control, just as an individual is punished by a 
23 






Tents of the Mighty 


similar imprisonment. At the suggestion of Pres¬ 
ident Roosevelt, I discussed this procedure with 
l/Attorney General Moody. The proposal was 
widely considered; it was pronounced a genuine 
^“cure-all” for corporate evils by the government’s 
chief expert on trust prosecutions. Years later I 
drafted a bill embodying this remedy, which was 
introduced into Congress by Victor Murdock, the 
progressive party leader, with the approval of 
Roosevelt. But, of course, the idea is clearly 
“impractical,” because the careful observer will 
note that one of the principal uses of a corporation 
is to provide a means whereby men can escape 
civil and criminal liability for wrong-doing. 
^Therefore, when the law is written in order to 
create irresponsibility, why change it to create 
responsibility? 

Observing, along the same line, in my law 
practice, how some little fellow was always made 
a scapegoat whenever big fellows were caught in 
crookedness, I thought people would be interested 
in knowing how this was done. So I began to 
write a book on the subject, in my evenings, 
translating a lot of facts into the form of fiction. 
I think this book must have started me on a 
“reform” career. To begin with, I had to give 
24 



When We Were Flaming Youth 


up my games and parties and lots of good times 
in order to write. This helps one develop a 
martyr complex, which every reformer should 
have in some degree. Writing down an inco¬ 
herent revolt tends to strengthen it and to make 
it real — if it is soundly based. So I discovered 
and asserted, in my preachment against the stu¬ 
pidity and evil of mere money-making, that the 
thief ideal had taken possession of us — or as I 
expressed it in my novel, The Shadow Men, 
“Every law of God or man says that he who 
takes more than he gives is a thief. 95 

To reveal the facts and to apply a moral cor¬ 
rective was the reforming philosophy of the time. 
When my book was published in 1911, I found 
myself in tune with the progressive movement, of 
which I had hardly been conscious before. Pro¬ 
fessor Charles E. Merriam was nominated for 
mayor of Chicago in the spring of the year, beat¬ 
ing the old-time republican candidate two to 
one. The youth of Chicago rose with a roar. 
The progressive shouting, that was silenced in the 
World War, had begun. The republican ma¬ 
chine made terms with the democratic machine. 
Merriam was beaten by Harrison in the election. 
Betrayed youth roared again and announced a 

25 




Tents of the Mighty 


progressive campaign for all offices in 1912; in 
which I was drafted to make a hopeless run in 
the republican primary as the progressive candi¬ 
date for state’s attorney. I was glad to make 
the fight; but I was really “drafted”; first, be¬ 
cause I had never thought of running for office 
until the committee came to me; and second, 
because I had to break with all my old political 
friends and advisers to make the race. 

My father had had his day of flame and settled 
down to conservative practical politics. He was 
sixty-seven years old in 1912. It was more than 
thirty years since he had been president of the 
board of education, fighting for equal rights for 
women teachers and no religious instruction in 
the public schools. He sighed at my decision, 
perhaps remembered his yout h, and said: “You’ll 
do as you want, but it is a foolish thing.” My 
uncle, and another republican leader of the old 
guard, said, “Why don’t you wait a while? Just 
be patient and you can have almost anything you 
want from the organization.” 

But I was in revolt, with my generation. 
Didn’t want what the old gang had to give. 
Wanted something different. Didrft know just 
^vhat o r why . But something different. That’s 
26 






When We Were Flaming Youth 


the natural cry of youth: “Give us something 
new.” So we have change, and youth calls it 
progress, because the young body is growing 
better and more useful and the young mind plans 
a better life. When the body grows older and less 
useful, the mind becomes more concerned with 
the hope that tomorrow may be no worse than 
today. So it is well for the young to challenge 
the leadership of their elders. And that is why 
the young men founded the progressive party in 
1912 and my generation turned a page in the big 
book and began to write a new chapter. 


27 






















WE THOUGHT IT WAS 
ARMAGEDDON 



THE STREETS WERE PACKED WITH PEOPLE SHOUTING, 
“WE WANT TEDDY!” 


















WE THOUGHT IT WAS 
ARMAGEDDON 

The streets were packed with people shouting: 
“ We want Teddy.” It was June, 1912. He stood 
up in his automobile at the door of the hotel and 
spoke briefly. I remember only the words, “ Thou 
shalt not steal,” and the eastern accent that so 
surprised me. This “ rough-rider” spoke like the 
men I had heard in Harvard Yarc}, many years 
before. The first glimpse of Roosevelt confirmed 
the impression I had when I described him in 
my book of the previous year as “the Apostle of 
the Obvious. 55 Filling the same role on the next 
Monday evening, he spoke in the Auditorium and 
finished with, “We stand at Armageddon and we 
battle for the Lord.” 

. “It’s too bad he can’t leave the Bible and the 
Lord out of this row, 55 I complained to a sympa¬ 
thetic newspaper man. But a few weeks later 
we shook the steel beams of the Coliseum with 
Onward Christian Soldiers and a politics-hard¬ 
ened reporter telegraphed his New York editor: 


Tents of the Mighty 


“I can’t make fun of this convention. This is a 
religion.” 

The progressive movement of 1912 was reli¬ 
gious; a revolt of youth against age, of idealism 
against materialism. My generation was spoiling 
for a fight with the ancient enemies of progress — 
the self-satisfied. It was sick and tired of pot¬ 
bellied politicians; tired of bankers and business 
men preaching a one-day-in-seven version of the 
Golden Rule. It wanted to get religion, but not 
in churches patronized by thieves. So when 
T. R. located Armageddon and the band played 
marching hymns, we put on shining armor and 
went out to battle for the Lord. It is altogether 
possible that the oncoming generation may do the 
same. 

The progressive party did not spring full 
armed from the brain of Roosevelt. LaFollette 
had been battling for twenty years before he was 
elected governor of Wisconsin in 1900; and it was 
his campaign for the republican nomination in 
1911 and 1912 that: demonstrated the political 
power of the rising d emand f or “s ocial justice-” 
Bryan ’s leadership in the democratic party since 
i8q6 had been based on the same appeal. Wilson 
was nominated in 1912 as the logical successo r 
32 







We Thought It Was Armageddon 


to this leadership. Prosperity was not enough. 
“If on this new continent we merely build another 
country of great but unjustly divid ed material 
prosperity, we shall have done nothing, 55 said 
Roosevelt at Carnegie Hall in March, 1912. 

Yet Wilson had expressed the pious hope that 
something could be done to “knock Bryan into a 
cocked hat 55 ; and I have a personal letter from 
Roosevelt written in 1917, describing Senator 
LaFollette as “one of the very few men who 
qs dis tinctly worse than P resident Wilson. 55 It 
appears that the outstanding leaders in the pro¬ 
gressive movement disagre ed rather vigorously 
regarding at least the methods of reaching the 
goal — if not the goal itself. 

Now it happens that I worked intimately, for 
years, with Roosev elt and LaFollett e, that I had 
a long acquaintance and many associations with 
Bryan , and various close contacts with President 
Wilson’s administration, as will appear hereafter. 
Upon this unprejudiced basis for appraising the 
public services of all these men, I know they were 
all truly “progressiv e 55 —in that their common 
goal was to lift up the level of the average well¬ 
being. Unfortunately they were so different in 
temperament, in personal habits and interests, 
33 













Tents of the Mighty 


which inevitably shape conduct, that not one 
could effectively cooperate with, or appreciate, 
the other. Yet, in his autobiography, LaFollette 
wrote: “Roosevelt is the keenest and ablest 
living interpreter of what I would call the super¬ 
ficial sentiment of a given time and he is spon¬ 
taneous in his response to it. 59 In cruder, but 
quite forceful language, Medill McCormick, in 
a conference over platform-writing, once said: 
“Fellows, we must remember that T. R. is great 
because he understands the psychology of the 
mutt.” ^ 

With these witnesses, fortified by my own ex¬ 
perience, I have concluded that “Roosevelt pro- 
gressivism” expressed more accurately the mass 
sentiment of my generation than the vague gen¬ 
eralizations of the evangelic Bryan, the close 
reasoning of the uncompro misin g LaFollette^ or 
the erudite radicalism of Wilson. This “Roose¬ 
velt progressivism” did not question the existing 
order. It proposed changes in law, largely for 
the purpose of compelling or inducing men to 
be “good” instead of “bad.” Public officials who 
behaved badly would be rejected, or their evil 
Ideec^s would be annulled by popular vote. Em¬ 
ployers would be directed to treat their employes 


34 









We Thought It Was Armageddon 


well. Big business would be e ncoura ged, if 
“good,” and punished if “bad. 55 The wicked 
strong people would be controlled and the good 
weak people would be protected. 

This political program for bringing about 
“social justice ” had several implications: i. That 
there was a clear line between what was right and 
wrong. 2. That the People would vote right, if 
they had the chance. 3. That if public officials 
were responsive to public opinion, they would 
know what was right and would do it. Since 
the terrible lessons of the World War, it has be¬ 
come somewhat evident: 1. That what is right 
or wrong is frequently a question for scientific, 
rather than popular opinion. 2. That the P eople 
can’t vote right unless they have the capacity for 
right judgment. 3. That public officials, xe- 
sponsive to public opinion, may follow either 
propaganda or preiudice and know neither what 
is right, nor how to do it. 

15 ut the “Roosevelt progressivism” was based 
on what the Colonel well called a “confession of 
faith.” It had a creed. You accepted it and joined 
the church. And so the progressive national 
convention was a great revival meeting. Pros¬ 
perity was the natural ideal — not for the few, 
35 






Tents of the Mighty 


as Roosevelt pointed out, but for the many. Gov¬ 
ernment should lift the poverty-stricken to the 
happy level of the well-to-do. In this glorious 
hour of political intoxication, the prophet Bever¬ 
idge cried: “Pass Prosperity Around 55 ; and at 
once a banner, already painted with the new-born 
slogan, fell from the ceiling. If not a miracle, 
this was at least a miraculous conception. We 
wept and we cheered and we sang, “His truth is 
marching on. 55 

Medill McCormick wrinkled more deeply his 
youthful, furrowed brow and said: “Think of me 
and Jane Addams on the same platform! 55 But 
there also stood George W. Perkins and Judge 
Ben B. Lindsey and Bill Flinn of Pittsburgh and 
Raymond Robins of Chicago. There was room 
on that platform for any one who had seen Peter 
Pan and believed in fairies. 

From August to November, in the year 1912, 
is one of my nightmare memories. I was trying 
to attend to private business and to devote ten 
hours a day to handling litigation for the progres¬ 
sive party. We had to fight the old party election 
machinery every step of the way and, as an en¬ 
thusiastic volunteer, I was made responsible for 
the legal battles in Illinois. Years later I was 
36 




We Thought It Was Armageddon 


informed that a group of candidates contributed 
$1,200 for my services in one contest. But the 
party chairman, learning by careful inquiry that 
I did not expect pay, turned the money into the 
general fund. He was much amused when I 
eventually learned about my “contribution 55 and 
asked him why I had not been consulted! I have 
often wondered how many fees have been col¬ 
lected for my legal services in political campaigns. 
I have never received any. But I have received 
a good many letters like the following from the 
then head of the progressive party organization 
in Illinois: 

My dear Don: 

I know that you have received no due recog¬ 
nition for your services. I wish you were a can¬ 
didate for some office within the party, within 
the city or within the state, that I might in the 
most public fashion possible, demand your recog¬ 
nition for your most unselfish devotion to the 
cause. 

The reason I transcribe, this letter is because 
there came a time when President Wils on in¬ 
formed my friends that he would be “very glad 
to appoint Mr. Richberg to the Federal Trade 
37 




Tents of the Mighty 


Commission 55 if Senator-(the writer of the 

letter) would approve. He declined to approve, 
and so I was kept free from the restraints of this 
public office; for which I have been duly grate¬ 
ful .. . although I did not appreciate the kind¬ 
ness at the time. 

The results of the 1912 campaign were most 
encouraging to the progressive leadership (which 
had little expectation of electing Roosevelt) and 
even to the optimistic rank and file, when the 
defeat of the old guard republicans was fairly 
appraised. Over a thousand workers gathered 
rejoicing in a “victory 55 dinner in Chicago, No¬ 
vember 14, and their sentiments were reflected 
in the following extracts from some verses that I 
read on that occasion: 

“I am not dead, 55 the elephant rolled up one 
bloodshot eye; 

“I may lie prostrate on the ground but yet how 
well I lie! 

“My eyes are blurred; I cannot hear men shout¬ 
ing in my ears; 

“But what of that! I have been blind and deaf 
for many years. 


38 





We Thought It Was Armageddon 


“When I have eased my broken bones I shall 
stand up again; 

“And legs that now are scrambled will be legs 
unscrambled then. 55 

The Elephant half rose and cried again: “I am 
not dead! 

“I shall arise and then progress — as soon as I 
am fed.” 

“We do not wish you to progress”; thus coldly 
spoke E. Root; 

“Stay here and listen to the steam calliope toot! 
toot!” 

He rang a bell and whispered to Jim Watson: 
“Do your worst.” 

The steamer tooted: “Darling I am growing 
old” — and burst! 

Loud shrieked the tortured Elephant: “Bring on 
the funeral wreath! 

“My tusks have been extracted and made into 
Teddy teeth. 

“Oh, where, where are the doctor men who tied 
me up last June. 

“When I had fits and tried to dance to that Pro¬ 
gressive tune? 

“Before the cyclone hit us they were with me 
standing pat.” 


39 





Tents of the Mighty 


“We’re with you now, 55 a thin voice gasped — 
“beneath you lying flat. 55 


Convinced that a “new day had dawned 55 in 
politics, a state and national Progressive Service 



“We’re with you now” a thin voice gasped — li beneath 
you lying flat!” 


was organized with the novel idea that party 
platforms might be written, new laws advanced, 
and voters educated by an organization separate 
from the office-seeking political machine. The 
party organization was generally skeptical, if not 
hostile; but the Service promoters would not be 
40 





We Thought It Was Armageddon 


denied and as they included not only intellectual 
but also financial supporters (who should not be 
alienated) the Service was allowed to organize 
and was then quietly and effectively sabotaged 
by its opponents. 

When the Illinois Progressive Service Board 
was organized, I was made chairman and it is 
interesting to recall that (in addition to a group 
of distinguished men) its membership included 
Miss Jane Addams, Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen, 
Miss Mary McDowell, Mrs. Medill McCormick 
(subsequently republican national committee¬ 
man) and Mrs. Kellogg Fairbank (subsequently 
democratic national committeeman). Here, as 
elsewhere, the uniting of a later divergent leader¬ 
ship showed the dominant influence of “Roosevelt 
progressivism.” In studying its rise and fall 
closely, we may draw the curve of our ‘‘progress” 
so as to project it across the chart of today into 
the dream sketches of tomorrow. 

Soon after the Illinois Service was organized, I 
J was asked to become director of the National Leg¬ 
islative Reference Bureau. This required me 
practically to abandon my Chicago practice and 
to live in New York City. The enthusiasm with 
4i 



Tents of the Mighty 


which I sliced off my income and undertook exist¬ 
ence on a small salary in New York is not easy 
to revive fifteen years later. But the idea that 
here, at least, was something “worth while doing” 
is plainly written in the dusty letters of that period. 

For many months we worked in the New York 
headquarters with a joyous zeal. Bills were 
drafted to fulfill the pledges of the progressive 
platform. Briefs, reports, speeches and letters 
were written to aid party leaders to push our 
“program” in state legislatures and in Congress. 
No day was long enough to answer all the corre¬ 
spondence and to keep up with the demands for 
“service.” Colonel Roosevelt wrote an article in 
the Saturday Evening Post, which referred rather 
generously to what my bureau was trying to do; 
and for days thereafter we could not even sort 
the letters that flowed into my small office. Usu¬ 
ally work ceased at midnight only because the 
elevators stopped running. It was amazing how 
difficulties faded away in the atmosphere of en¬ 
thusiasm for public work. One example will 
suffice. 

No subject was apparently weighted with 
T greater difficulties than trust regulation. I was 
warned that George W. Pejddns would oppose 
42 




We Thought It Was Armageddon 


anything effective, as he was not only chairman 
of the progressive executive committee, but also 
chairman of the finance committee of the U. S. 
Steel Corporation. Of course, Roosevelt, with 
his ideas of “good” and “bad” trusts, would sup¬ 
port Perkins! The chairman of our legislative 
reference committee was Dean Lewis of the 
University of Pennsylvania Law School. On the 
committee were Herbert Knox Smith, former 
commissioner of corporations, James R. Garfield, 
former secretary of the interior, Dean Kirchwey 
of Columbia, Judge Ben B. Lindsey, Professor 
Merriam of Chicago, Gifford Pinchot, Francis J. 
Heney, Jane Addams and Walter E. Weyl. What 
a hopeless job it would be to reconcile the views 
of these vigorous-minded individuals of widely 
differing personal bias! But these imagined 
obstacles melted away. 

At the outset it was readily agreed that Perkins 
would not be consulted. For his sake and ours 
he should have no re sponsi bility. (Yet when all 
our federal bills were published, although Per¬ 
kins did not particularly approve of the anti-trust 
bills, he said that the work of the bureau on this 
one job was worth its whole cost.) Inside three 
months practically the entire congressional pro- 
43 






Tents of the Mighty 


gram of bills had been drafted and approved by 
the committee. The anticipated difficulties in¬ 
volved in dealing with Roosevelt melted away as 
shown by two incidents. 

On one occasion a congressman wanted a spe¬ 
cial letter from T. R. endorsing workmen’s com¬ 
pensation. The Colonel told me to give him a 
short memo of what I thought he should say; 
which I did. A day or two later, he phoned me 
to see him and then handed me a letter which 
was almost word for word what I had written. 

“Is that all right?” he asked, peering at me 
through his glasses. Then he added with a grin, 
“If it isn’t you write it over.” 

“No,” I answered, laughing, “it suits me the 
way it was originally written!” 

i/When the three anti-trust bills were finished, 
I met the Colonel at Newport (where he had 
made a speech) and returned to New York with 
him on the night boat. We sat on the upper 
deck after dinner and I explained the bills, sec¬ 
tion by section. When I had finished, after very 
few interruptions, he said: “Now let me see if I 
understand this.” Then he proceeded step by 
step to summarize the legislation, a remarkable 
demonstration of his ability to absorb information 
44 




We Thought It Was Armageddon 


rapidly. We then discussed a few points in detail, 
particularly the more unusual and “radical” pro¬ 
visions. 

“That’s fine,” he said in conclusion, “I ap¬ 
prove absolutely. I will en dors e them and sup¬ 
port them in any way I can. You tell Murdock 
[who was to introduce them] he can count on 

55 

me. 

There was a brief silence. Then the Colonel 
said: 

“You know it is the way of American politics 
that some one person must always be standing 
in the limelight, shouting, T stand for this, 5 and 
T stand for that. 5 I used to think about it often 
when I was in the White House, announcing my 
position or my policy on this and that subject; 
and all the time back there in the shadows were 
those splendid fellows, Pinchot and Newell and 
Smith, doing all the drudging work. It doesn’t 
seem quite fair. But that’s the way it has to be.” 

And years later Gifford Pinchot commented: 
“Yes, that’s what T. R. would say. But he did 
a lot of the work himself; and his policies were 
really his policies.” To which I might add that, 
while it was as easy to make suggestions to the 
Colonel as to any man with whom I ever worked, 
45 






Tents of the Mighty 


he accepted an idea only when it had become 
his idea. He did his own thinking. But he was 
most generous in acknowledging help. I remem¬ 
ber that once when I met him at the train, before 
he stepped off the platform he called out: “Did 
you see my editorial? I took an idea from you.” 

Still more gracious was his letter when I re¬ 
stated the much abused and misrepresented doc¬ 
trine of “recall of decisions” — and he wrote: 
“That’s a capital article of yours! I am inclined 
to think that the expression you used is better 
than either of those I invented in the groping 
effort to formulate in a precise and short phrase 
just what I was after.” 

It was largely Roosevelt’s dominance in the 
party that made the Progressive Service possible 
and enjoyable. He welcomed efforts to help, 
even though often clumsy and ill-conceived, and 
thus he encouraged every one who wanted to 
serve. Despite the sharpness of his criticisms of 
opponents and foolish friends, he was extraordi¬ 
narily tolerant of human weakness. This Newport 
trip came at the close of a dreadful day of political 
mismanagement and when I spoke of the chief 
culprit he said: 

“Oh, Mr.-is just a jackass. But it was our 

46 




We Thought It Was Armageddon 


mistake in trusting him. Now it’s a beautiful 
moonlit night on the water. The night will atone 
for the day. 55 

On another occasion, when Albert J. Bever¬ 
idge had been as temperamental as a grand 
opera star, I heard some one say: 

“Oh, Beveridge is just a baby.” 

“Ah, yes! But a very brilliant baby,” re¬ 
plied T. R. 

The progressive movement contained many 
brilliant babies and myriads of political innocents. 
It required a good deal of money to support and 
educate them. ^Hard-headed business men who 
wanted to be “progressive” found it necessary 
also to finance the republican and democratic 
organizations, which still spoke (and collected) 
for assessors, prosecuting attorneys, governors, 
mayors and legislators (not to mention, of course, 
the courts) in whose activities hard-headed busi¬ 
ness men had a continuing and very practical 
interest. Four hundred and fifteen republican 
and democratic congressmen were, of course, 
of more practical use than twenty progressives. 
Furthermore, the party of Woodrow Wilson ap¬ 
peared to be more afraid, or jealous, of the party 
of Roosevelt than of the G. O. P.; so that instead 
47 






Tents of the Mighty 


of helping build up the progressives with c Mi¬ 
nority 5 5 recognition, the democrats generally en¬ 
couraged a “come-back” of the republicans. 

By the spring of 1914, the pr ogress ives were in 
fi nancial difficulties everywhere. A fight must be 
made in the fall elections to win more offices. 
Funds were scarce. Organization leaders who 
had frowned on the Progressive Service now de¬ 
nounced it. This “idealistic” stuff could be 
carried too far! It was time to be practical. 
# Even Raymond Robins (disavowing membership 
in the so-called “lunatic fringe”) wrote me that 
what we needed was “organization from the pre¬ 
cincts up” — and that the Service was “over¬ 
organized. 55 Under nation-wide pressure, Perkins 
and others began the reorganization to “cut out 
v^the frills.” Unfortunately, most of the enthusi¬ 
astic volunteer workers were engaged in “frills. 55 
They were not trained or adapted to precinct 
labors. They were interested in “new methods” 
in politics. The “old methods” seemed a part 
of the old results. After a brief struggle against 
the “practical” men, the “impractical” ones 
faded out of the party picture. The Service work 
came to an end. 

During this transformation of the party from 
48 






We Thought It Was Armageddon 


a religious movement to a political mechanism, 
'my own ideas underwent considerable change. 

I agreed with Robins’ statement that “we are * 
either in the current of an epoch-making [politi¬ 
cal] movement in answer to the economic and 
social movements of the past twenty years, or we 
are wasting our time”; but I did not believe that 
the formation of a purely vote-getting organiza¬ 
tion was the way to avoid wasting our time. 
Political education and a new political religion 
seemed to me necessary before a new political 
organization could accomplish anything. We had 
started too fast in 1912 and slower progress was 
inevitable. But the logic of events was against 
me. The treasuries were empty and the political 
bankers would not support any program that was 
not “business-like.” There is a wide gulf be¬ 
tween a religious movement and an established 
church. It was made plain that any further 
contributions should be spent on the business of 
politics — which is getting offices. When you 
get offices you can pay your debts and declare 
dividends. You are a going concern. If you don’t 
hold offices, you are living on charity and hopes. 

In a speech to New Jersey progressives, I ex¬ 
plained the reluctance of practical politicians to 
49 




Tents of the Mighty 


join a “purity crusade, 55 in a paraphrase of Ham¬ 
let’s soliloquy: 

Thus pocket-book makes cowards of us all 
And thus the native hue of revolution 
Is sicklied o’er with the pale fear of jobs 
And enterprises of state-craft and wisdom 
By “black horse cavalry” are turned awry 
And earn the name: Reaction. 

^Tn the final struggle, my understanding of both 
points of view led Mr. Perkins into the curious 
design of saving the Legislative Reference Bureau 
out of the wreck as a sop to the “intellectuals,”^ 
but transformed under my direction into a purely 
organization agency. He could not understand 
my opposition. 

“If that is your attitude, you are not fit to be 
the head of this work,” he stormed at me. 

“That was what I wanted you to understand,” 
was my answer. And I wrote to one of my com¬ 
mittee: “Perkins approves of me, except when he 
gets mad. When an office boy or valet is needed, 

I am happily persona non grata” 

The Service was chloroformed and buried pri¬ 
vately so that the newspapers might not find in 
50 




We Thought It Was Armageddon 


its death too many signs of the impending demise 
of the party. Bitter letters and reports that were 
frequently prepared for “press release” were never 
published, but have been preserved; and some 
day an interested historian will be able to explain 
just how and why the progressive movement un¬ 
der Roosevelt died “a-borning.” It may be suf¬ 
ficient now merely to write (with the shade of 
Beveridge dissenting) that the party did not come 
“from the grass roots.” (Nor did the LaFollette 
party of 1924.) Leadership did not spring “from 
the loins of the people” — as the Tammany Hall 
speakers frequently, but inaccurately, describe 
their leadership. 

The song was ended, but “the melody lingered 
on,” as I returned to Chicago in the spring of 
1914. There was some satisfaction in the parting 
testimonial received from my committee and in 
Victor Murdock’s written “appreciation of the 
great service you have been to the cause, the 
Progressives here, and to myself in putting our 
constructive program on its feet. You were in¬ 
dispensable.” That was pleasant to read, al¬ 
though the questions would arise: “Indispensable 
to what? What had we really done?” Despite 
5 1 



Tents of the Mighty 


a note signed “T. Roosevelt” stating that he had 
not heard any criticism of me and would not 
“pay any heed to any criticism I may hear” — 
there was a criticism in my own mind to which 
heed must be given. The first flaring enthusiasm 
of youth for public service had been checked. 
Probably it would never burn quite so freely 
again. It seemed a little silly. Thousands of 
other young men and women must have gone 
through the same questionings from November, 
✓I912, to August, 1914, when the World War be- 
✓gan its wholesale destruction of faith, plundering 
my generation of its spiritual heritage. 

But there were other progressive battles ahead, 
before the “crusaders” were dispersed and the 
hymn-books and rituals were returned to the 
churches, without suitable apologies. The un¬ 
chastened republicans of Illinois offered as their 
candidate for United States senator “Larry” Sher¬ 
man, who had once been carried into the State 
House on a stretcher to vote for the most scandal¬ 
ous law that crooked utilities ever bought and 
paid for in Illinois. As his opponent, Roger 
Sullivan, the democratic boss, had named himself, 
the almost perfect product of politics for private v-* 
profit. The progressive nominee was Raymond 
52 





We Thought It Was Armageddon 


Robins^ The choice was clear between two men 
of proved unfitness for public office — unashamed 
servants of private greed — and a “reformer” 
whose moral worth and desire to render public 
service were unchallenged. It seem ed to me then 
dncredible that either man could be elected whose 
sordid record was printed in the carefully docu¬ 
mented “S.-S.” pamphlet which was sent into 
nearly every home in the state. 

The republicans compared Sherman to Lin¬ 
coln, because he looked like a very poor copy of 
the original. The democrats sobbed that the be¬ 
reaved Wilson (who had just lost his wife) was wait¬ 
ing for Roger to come to Washington and solace 
him . . . which “watchful waiting” the President 
declined to confirm. The progressives dared the 
“bi-partisan alliance of greed and graft” to meet 
them at Armageddon, but the battle was fought 
elsewhere. The voters chose Sherman. Sullivan 
ran second and Robins third. A few days later 
Robins wrote me: “I regard your work as the 
most effective one element in securing the defeat 
of Mr. Sullivan.” But I disagreed then and now. 
We did not defeat anybody. The republican 
candidate won in a normally republican state. 
“Roosevelt progressivism” had spent its force. 

53 






Tents of the Mighty 


^In the spring of 1915 came a republican- 
progressive coalition in Chicago. Bill Thompson 4 
was elected mayor as its first achievement, in 
which I am glad to say I had no part, although 
his opponent was equally unfit. Then came a 
coalition on judges in which I received a fusion 
✓-nomination for the Circuit Court. Fortunately, 
the Thompson crowd knifed all but one of the 
^progressive nominees. Thus the bench and I 
were saved from each other. If “Big Bill” could 
have seen the amount of trouble I was destined 
to make for him, he would surely have given or¬ 
ders to place me safely on the bench. But the 
brainless wonders of politics rarely have prophetic 
vision. It has been my good fortune all my life 
to be saved from my worst mistakes by my ene¬ 
mies. There should be a profound lesson in this 
experience, but I do not know just what it is — 
unless perhaps it is humility. Tolerant friends, 
angry enemies and lots of luck are great aids in 
w4he scramble up. 

The judicial defeat of 1915 marks, for me, the 
J end of youth. Although only thirty-four years 
old, I had been a boy too long. My father, 
stricken with apoplexy in March, was a helpless 
54 




We Thought It Was Armageddon 


invalid, doomed to three years more of existence 
lying in bed, requiring the services of a nurse 
night and day. Our practice had suffered from 
his previous illness and my absence in New York. 
The family debts exceeded the assets by a large 
amount. Since 1915, no less than six and usually 
eight persons have always been dependent on my 
earnings. 

Quite suddenly I realized that there was a 
^horrible, hard reality in this “struggle for exist¬ 
ence” about which I had theorized; that the 
^ “economic pressure” was a heartless, savage 
thing; that if I did not keep my feet in the crowd 
of human beings milling around me, I would go 
down under the trampling feet, and those near 
/ and dear would go down with me. 

There were many days and nights when I 
knew all too well the fear that besets the man out 
of a job, the fear of the beaten man, that puts 
timid despair or sullen hatred in his eyes. I had 
my days of walking around with hands in empty 
pockets, trying to look cheerful. I had my nights 
of struggling with bills payable and receivable, 
that simply couldn’t be balanced. It didn’t re¬ 
quire long years of this sort of thing to teach me 
the feelings of the under-dog, or to bring under- 
55 




Tents of the Mighty 


standing of the self-confident exultation of the 
self-made man who has fought his way up from 
poverty to plenty. To slip back from compara¬ 
tive comfort to desperate need for a few months 
was enough. I imagine that a man blind for a 
year knows the sorrows of the life-long blind — 
and more besides. 

This personal experience is related because 
the “times that try men’s souls” shape their phi¬ 
losophy and either create or destroy their ability 
to understand other men. When there develops 
in one a hatred of the bitter uncertainties of life 
that might be relieved by improved organization 
and cooperation, the pessimist reverts to sav¬ 
agery and the optimist becomes more civilized. 
I can remember black hours of thinking: “If 
this is just a game of wolves, I’m going to be a 
good wolf. Don’t anybody mistake me for a 
woolly lamb.” But when the clouds lifted, I 
could see that when men compare themselves 
with animals, only part of the brain is function¬ 
ing. The dead brain-cells in those who call 
themselves bulls and bears make this point 
clear. 

Fitted to my mood of self-preservation was the 
campaign for “preparedness” which Roosevelt 
56 






We Thought It Was Armageddon 


^undertook in 1915. I was already convinced that 
Providence would not take care of any one who 
failed to take care of himself. For the same rea¬ 
son, I was able to open the door when a political 
opportunity came knocking that same year in a 
new and somewhat repulsive form. 

The story of the political maneuvering by 
which a most unfriendly committee of Chicago 
aldermen selected me as special counsel for the 
city to fight the gas company, would take too 
long to tell. Anyhow, that sort of explanation is 
always omitted, I have observed, from the auto¬ 
biographies of noble statesmen, so that a similar 
gap may well be left in this humbler narrative. 
To be the beneficiary of chicanery and double 
dealing and questionable motives does not elevate 
the chest, even though one’s own hands are not 
soiled. “The President has paid dear for his 
White House,” wrote Emerson over eighty years 
ago. “It has commonly cost him all his peace 
and the best of his manly attributes.” Any vet¬ 
eran politician who stumbled across these words 
might well remark: “That professor knew his 
onions.” Indeed it was Bathhouse John, the fa¬ 
mous Chicago alderman, who shouted in the 
Council Chamber: “Let Caesar get what’s com- 
57 






Tents of the Mighty 



“Let Ccesar get what's coming to him!" shouted Bathhouse John 

ing to him!” He knew that Caesar would have to 
J pay dearly for what he got. 

So at the time when Europe was sliding down 
the abyss of the World War in its second year and 

58 













We Thought It Was Armageddon 


America was moving nearer to the edge of the 
same pit, I was thrust into the very center of that 
'"'civil warfare between visible and invisible govern¬ 
ment, about which the progressives of 1912 had 
talked so much and done so little. Through the 
subsequent delirium of the war and the sickening 
relapses of reconstruction, my more or less private 
fight continued and its field extended. Opposi¬ 
tion to the invisible rulers of Chicago led naturally 
into conflicts with their brethren who rode into 
complete control of the nation when we had made 
the world “safe for democracy” and selected the 
Ohio gang to make democracy safe for America. 

Few indeed are the progressives of my genera¬ 
tion who have survived the bludgeoning of these 
years. Death and defeat and discouragement 
have taken most of them out of the public service. 
But, looking back, it seems as though I might 
“dimly guess what time in mists confounds”; and, 
regardless of where the lost leaders have gone, 
might catch a glimpse of where they were going. 

In the vast muddle of human affairs, some¬ 
times in the thick of the fighting, in the heat of 
the day, in a wakeful hour of the night, will come 
a luminous moment, perhaps hallucination: but 
a sudden, very real sense of truth revealed, upon 
59 




Tents of the Might/ 


which one builds a sort of faith. So the story will 
go on, although Roosevelt must die in the next 
chapter — and thereafter Wilson and LaFollette 
and Bryan must follow him down the long trail. 
Reminiscences have a sad flavor of the “good old 
days”; and of the apparent futility of all human 
effort. But as I ride back over yesterday, the 
Hound of Heaven follows me. The road has no 
end — 

Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds 
From the hid battlements of Eternity, 

Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then 
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash 
again. 


60 




THE FOUR HORSEMEN CAME 



AND WE WENT INTO WAR 

































THE FOUR HORSEMEN CAME 

On August i, 1914, a young German officer 
limped across my living room, testing a leg that 
had been broken in the spring. 

“I must get my leg strong for the Kaiser, 55 
he said with a boyish grin. His uncle had been 
Chancellor of the Empire. His father, General 
von Biilow, commanded the Second Army, which 
was soon to smash through Belgium and drive 
across France to the Marne. 

“When are you leaving? 55 I asked. 

“Just as soon as we get the word from the 
consul. We saw him again this afternoon. 55 

“What do you think is going to happen? Is 
all Europe going in? How long can it last? 55 
The questions sounded silly. But then the idea 
of a general European war seemed incredible. 

Von Biilow answered slowly. 

“It all depends upon England. If England 
doesn’t go in we are all right. If England goes in, 
I’m afraid it will be very hard for us. Oh, no one 
knows; but I can’t believe England will go in. 55 

63 


Tents of the Mighty 


The artillery captain and cavalry officer who 
were with him nodded solemnly. 

However, England did go in; and, long after 
von Biilow had plunged to death in his crumpled 
plane, the United States also went in. Here as 
everywhere the delicate flame of progressivism 
was swallowed in the red glare of war. But in the 
first years of Wilson’s administration there had 
been quite a blaze fanned by the victorious de¬ 
mocracy. Even in this retrospect of my some¬ 
what partisan adventures a tribute should be paid 
to the gallant group of democrats who, after six¬ 
teen years of peerless leadership to defeat, were 
still able to mobilize an impressive army of volun¬ 
teers behind Wilson in 1912. Thereby the party 
mercenaries were prevented from claiming the in¬ 
evitable victory as all their own. Foliowin^such 
conspicuous figures as Bryan, Lane, Brandeis, 
Baker, McAdoo and Daniels, there were hosts of 
young enthusiasts who would have sung hymns 
with the progressives in August, 1912, if they had 
not been able to nominate Wilson at Baltimore 
in July. Indeed I must personally acknowledge 
having received as much aid and comfort in pro¬ 
gressive struggles of the last twenty years from 
Wilson democrats as from Roosevelt republicans. 1 
64 




The Four Horsemen Came 


If, from the Roosevelt camp with somewhat 
^jealous eyes, we watched the progressive democ¬ 
racy create a tariff commission, a federal reserve 
system and a federal trade commission; and 
write laws to promote the welfare of wage-earners, 
to protect seamen and to prohibit child labor, at 
least we were compelled to join in the applause. 

^It was exasperating to be ignored as a third politi¬ 
cal organization. But the Wilsonian strategy was 
to develop a two-party government, with a liberal 
democratic party in pojver, opposed only by a 
conservative republican party. And one had to 
concede the political wisdom that lifted a c Mi¬ 
nority 5 5 victory in 1912 almost to a “majority 55 
triumph in 1916—increasing the popular vote 
for Wilson from less than forty-two per cent to 
more than forty-nine. 

Persistently the progressive democrats urged 
the Roosevelt leaders to join them in advancing 
this two-party program. Eventually many of our 
old companions in arms, such as Bainbridge Colby, 
“went democratic, 55 particularly after the progres¬ 
sive party collapsed in 1916. A few, like Costigan 
and Murdock, received “ minority party 55 appoint¬ 
ments. Thus they were able to render effective 
public service during and after the war. And 

65 




Tents of the Might/ 


somehow the chill-eyed Wilson inspired an awed 
devotion very different from the respectful but fa¬ 
miliar enthusiasm around our magnetic “Teddy. 55 
(I might mention that I never heard a friend call 
him “Teddy. 55 But when strangers yelled the 
name as we drove through the streets, he would 
beam upon them and wave his hand with ob¬ 
vious pleasure.) 

The secretary of the democratic national 
committee, sitting at my dinner table, did not 
intend to be profane or blasphemous. But the 
spell of Woodrow Wilson lay upon him. 

“I think he is the greatest man since Christ, 55 
he said. 

No review of the progressive movement in my 
time should ignore this worshiping host that fol¬ 
lowed Wilson. His written and spoken eloquence 
played upon their emotions; but his achievements 
gave them more lasting joy. Presidents have 
struggled with Congress, have fought and pled 
with Congress, have wept and laughed and sulked 
at Congress. But Woodrow Wilson alone within 
recent memory dominated Congress — for a long 
time. And that spectacle extraordinarily en¬ 
thused his friends and scared his enemies. 

A LaFollette leader, who had come into in- 

66 




The Four Horsemen Came 


^timate association with the President, whispered 
to me, as though fearing to be overheard: “Ye 
Gods! But he is radical. If our friends in Wall 
Street knew the things he thinks — and some¬ 
times even says — they wouldn’t be sleeping 
peacefully tonight.” 

Fortunately for their slumbers, these gentle¬ 
men probably had forgotten (or did not think 
Wilson really meant) what he had said in 1912: 

^ “We have come to be one of the worst ruled, 
one of the most completely controlled and dom¬ 
inated governments in the civilized world — no 
longer a government by conviction and vote of 
the majority, but a government by the opinion 
and duress of small groups of dominant men.” 

My own acquaintance with those whom 
Woodrow Wilson trusted — and with labor lead¬ 
ers to whose efforts he gave powerful aid — makes 
me think that what he said in 1912 he believed 
as long as he lived. 

A progressive national leader had been spe¬ 
cially commissioned, in 1912, to investigate a 
“scandalous affair” that everybody knew about, 
and about which few people really knew anything. 
He told me in great detail the results of his sleuth¬ 
ing. “I have all the documents in a safety deposit 
67 


/ 




Tents of the Mighty 


box in New York,” he said in a low voice, glanc¬ 
ing around the club room in apparent fear that 
a secret service man might be lurking behind a 
window drape. “I think the President knows 
that I have them. Honest, I’m afraid to go to 
Washington. Can’t tell what might happen.” 

These mental states, exaggerated though they 
may sound, indicated the respect — to use an in¬ 
clusive word — which Wilson inspired. Over and 
over again was heard the complaint on Capitol 
Hill: “They went up to the White House yester¬ 
day all full of fight and they came away nice 
and tame, saying: ‘Yes, Mr. President. Quite 
right, Mr. President.’ ” 

Mr. Bryan, “knocked into a cocked hat” in 
the department of state, must have smiled grimly 
when he remembered the charges brought against 
his “ruthless” leadership; and as he watched the 
chill precision with which his chief moved the 
bewildered politicians around on the “checker¬ 
board of nights and days.” With even more grim 
amusement he must have watched the play against 
Roosevelt. First came the period of domestic 
legislation, when our carefully worked out, well 
advertised progressive program became a demo¬ 
cratic program largely enacted into laws to wit- 
68 




The Four Horsemen Came 


ness the advance and triumph of Wilsonian 
democracy. 

Then came the issue of preparedness, with 
Roosevelt going out to arouse the countryside and 
Wilson quietly waiting to take the command of 
the minute-men, whenever they should rally to 
the call to arms in sufficient numbers to constitute 
a dangerous opposition — or a useful supporting 
army. 

When Roosevelt started his preparedness cam¬ 
paign in 1915 it was at the ebb tide of his popu¬ 
larity. The progressive party was dying and this 
campaign, particularly in the beginning, tended 
to hasten its demise. Roosevelt cherished no de¬ 
lusion that it was a popular issue. His political 
analysis is given in the following extract from a 
letter dated September 4, 1915: 

“I think you are exactly right. I believe that 
I have helped wake the people up. I believe also 
that in doing it I have increased the animosity 
to me personally; and I am sorry to say it is 
possible Wilson will profit by what I have done, 
because . . . [he] . . . will now bow enough to 
the inevitable to make some recommendations 
for half-preparedness; and the American people 
will then credit it to him for righteousness. You 

69 




Tents of the Mighty 


really please me when you say that you do not 
believe that I care for the political cost to myself. 
My dear Richberg, I think I can conscientiously 
,say that I have always been willing to sacrifice 
piy own political chances for a national object 
/which I consider of sufficient weight. But in ad¬ 
dition I feel at present that there isn’t any sacri¬ 
fice about it. It is utter folly for any man to 
think of my holding political position again; and 
there is the great compensating advantage that 
this enables me to speak with entire freedom with¬ 
out feeling that thereby I am damaging faithful 
followers with whose fortunes my fortunes are 
tangled.” 

Many of the Colonel’s c 'faithful followers” did 
not agree with his estimate of his own political 
strength. The response to his campaign was 
clearly reviving the old enthusiasm for "Teddy,” 
and in late December I went to Oyster Bay to 
add another voice to those urging him not to 
accept the defeatist strategy of the progressive 
party leadership. It was useless. He smiled 
tolerantly at my insistence that public sentiment 
was swinging rapidly in his favor and with a 
friendly clap on the shoulder finished the discus¬ 
sion saying: "That would be very interesting if 
70 




The Four Horsemen Came 


more than one-half of one per cent of the Ameri¬ 
can people felt the way you do. 55 

Weeks later we met at a private luncheon in 
Chicago and as I came into the room he walked 
abruptly across to me and said: “You remember 
our conversation last winter? It is coming that 
way, isn’t it?” He glowed with pleasure at the 
tremendous change in public opinion, even though 
his earlier doubts had eliminated him from the 
S presidential race. Convinced of his own unpopu¬ 
larity, determined at any cost to defeat Wilson 
for reelection, but resolved not to be forced into 
support of a reactionary republican, he had made 
it clear to friends and foes alike that if the repub¬ 
licans nominated such a man as Hughes in 1916, 
^he would not run as a progressive and he would 
support the republican nominee. It was this 
committal that some of his friends sought to pre¬ 
vent in the winter of 1915. When it was once 
made, the nomination of Hughes became a prac¬ 
tical certainty and the death of the progressive 
party was inevitable. In a small book published 
late in 1916 (entitled “Who Wins in Novem¬ 
ber?”), I explained in still more detail the pre¬ 
convention strategy and its results, as well as the 
position of Colonel Roosevelt and I received a 
7i 





Tents of the Mighty 


letter subsequently from the Colonel, in which 
he said: “I want to thank you very warmly for 
your really admirable discussion of my position, 
which is exactly right. 55 The two conventions 
were called for the same June day in the same 
city, Chicago. As a columnist wrote, the pro¬ 
gressive party advertised that it would be on a 
certain corner at a certain time, wearing a red car¬ 
nation, and that its intentions were matrimonial! 

There was only one hope for those who still 
yearned for an honest party dedicated to real 
progress — a hope that the republicans would 
pickle their brains in prejudice and refuse to 
nominate Hughes and demonstrate complete con¬ 
tempt for the Roosevelt-progressive power. Then 
the progressives might get rid of their worst po¬ 
litical encumbrances — nominate Roosevelt and 
make another campaign in which a permanent 
party might be built. Unfortunately, by the time 
the conventions met the Roosevelt influence was 
so enormous that nothing but suicidal mania 
could have kept the republican party from nom¬ 
inating Hughes to insure T. R. 5 s support. In¬ 
deed many of us believed —with good reason — 
that if the Colonel had not already given his pri¬ 
vate endorsement of Hughes (and thus scratched 
72 




The Four Horsemen Came 


off his own name) his nomination could have been 
forced on the republicans as the only alternative 
to four years more of Wilson. 

- That hot summer of 1916 holds three special 
memories for me. First, came a sudden illness 
putting me in bed for ten days, where I wrote 
with pain and perspiration, but with a desperate 
enthusiasm, the keynote speech of the progressive 
convention. It was really the funeral oration of 
Roosevelt progressivism. There were peculiar 
reasons known only to a few that brought about 
this particular collaboration. It would have re¬ 
mained a secret, but the generous orator who 
invoked and delivered the address (Raymond 
Robins) unexpectedly revealed its authorship 
when he introduced me at a banquet held the first 
day of the convention. Since, therefore, it was my 
function to explain where the progressive party 
was going when it was about to die, I ought to 
be fairly well qualified, some thirteen years later, 
to tell where it went! Also, eight years after its 
death, I personally conducted the ghost through 
the LaFollette-Whgder progressive convention 
— my spiritual office"being technically described 
as chairman of the resolutions committee. 

7 § 




Tents of the Mighty 


The second heated memory of 1916 has more 
historical significance. While Candidate Hughes 
was on his disastrous western tour, long and vio¬ 
lent telegrams forced me to make a protest to his 
campaign manager. It appeared that the old 
guard republicans had taken control of the Cali¬ 
fornia machinery and were planning the state 
campaign so as to ignore and injure the friends 
of Governor Hiram Johnson as much as possible. 
vThis internal warfare was clearly endangering the 
national ticket. So, armed with imperative cre¬ 
dentials, I had a long talk with Chairman Willcox 
of the republican national committee. Then and 
there I saw how and why the campaign could 
be (and was to be) lost. “What can I do? What 
can I do?” was the chairman’s futile cry. Ap¬ 
parently, all over the country the old guard forces 
v-were using their knives on the progressives who 
Hiad “reunited” with them. Progressive votes 
were welcome; but, in state after state, the re¬ 
covery of local political control was more im¬ 
portant to the small-fry office holders than the 
national ticket. So Johnson and the progressives 
were flouted in California — and California was 
lost — and Hughes lost — and we reelected the 
man who “kept us out of war” — and promptly 
74 



The Four Horsemen Came 


went into war! My interview with Willcox in 
Chicago, trying to prevent the California debacle 
long before it occurred, is just another instance 
of the hole in the dike and the small boy, whose 
thumb wasn’t big enough to stop the sea! 

There was another small-boy-at-the-dike epi¬ 
sode during the campaign that shows the brain 
caliber of reputed political giants. A partially 
representative group of German-Americans had 
obtained a rather discreditable understanding 
with the national republican organization — 
whereby they felt they would get more favorable 
treatment under Hughes than under Wilson. 
There was double-dealing and bluffing on both 
sides. For many years I had been a director in, 
and attorney for, a group of German newspapers 
and, therefore, had a good deal of first-hand in¬ 
formation, regarding the professional “foreign- 
language” politicans who had multiplied greatly 
in number, malignance and mendacity during 
the European war. Roosevelt had been assailing 
the “hyphenates” with his usual vigor; so they 
found it easy to join forces with the anti-progres¬ 
sives in the republican organization. 

Hearing that the Colonel expected to deliver 
a special blast at “hyphenated-Americans” in 
75 




Tents of the Mighty 


Chicago, the so-called German group protested 
to the campaign committee. Those politicians 
being “wise,” if not candid, did not move directly 
but pulled the wires so that T. R. was induced to 
agree to make a great c ‘labor 55 speech in Chicago 
— not having any idea of why the change was 
requested. Simultaneously Roosevelt’s friends 
and his political enemies learned of the trick. 
A democratic paper in possession of the story pre¬ 
pared to follow up the Chicago speech with a 
tremendous expose, picturing the republican or¬ 
ganization, with the connivance of Roosevelt, 
deliberately carrying on a “pro-German” cam¬ 
paign to elect Hughes and to reverse the alleged 
“pro-Allies” policy of Wilson. All those who 
remember pre-war sentiment during our “neu¬ 
trality” will recognize that if the issue between 
Hughes and Wilson had been made clearly “pro- 
German” against “pro-Allies,” Wilson would not 
have had to wait for the California vote to know 
of his reelection. The bad-faith of the organiza¬ 
tion toward Roosevelt was no greater than the 
stupidity of the injury it was sure to inflict upon 
Hughes. 

Time was very short when full information 
came into the hands of the Chicago progressives. 
76 




The Four Horsemen Came 


It became my job to carry the message to the 
chief. I met him at Denver and took the same 
train with him the next day to Chicago. There 
were only a few talks scheduled from the platform 
of his private car so we had long sessions over the 
Chicago speech. Never have I seen a “towering 
rage 55 more effectively controlled. The Colonel 
dictated telegrams of inordinate length but of 
beautifully clear expression. There was nothing 
incoherent in his wrath! He explained just what 
he would and would not do. He would fill a few 
fixed engagements and then retire to Oyster Bay. 
He would not say anything in public to injure 
the campaign. Hughes was beating himself and 
the defeat should not be charged to Roosevelt. 
With knife-edged words, he explained what he 
thought of the campaign — its blunders, its hy¬ 
pocrisies, its consistent double-dealing, the treach¬ 
ery of the official attitude everywhere toward the 
progressives whose votes were necessary to elect 
Hughes. 

Telegrams came flying back to us as the train 
neared the Mississippi — first evasive, then apolo¬ 
getic, then beseeching. The gentlemen in com¬ 
mand finally realized a bit of their folly. They 
were very willing to be guided right. They were 
77 





Tents of the Mighty 


sorry they had tried to bite a helping hand, es¬ 
pecially after the hand had slapped them so 
vigorously and justly. And so it happened that 
the silly group of plotters accomplished less than 
nothing. T. R. made his most vigorous anti- 
“hyphenate 55 speech in Chicago. The democratic 
expose never came off. But Mr. Wilson knew 
who had tried the hardest to beat him — and 
Mr. Wilson was reelected — and we went to war! 

A month or so after the election, I met Colo¬ 
nel Roosevelt at a Chicago railroad depot and, 
as we rode over to the club where a private lunch¬ 
eon had been arranged, he suddenly turned and, 
whacking me across the knee, cried, with obvious 
relief: “Well, we did all we could, but we have 
this satisfaction now — we are not responsible for 
Mr. Wilson and we are not responsible for Mr. 
Hughes! 55 If he had made another progressive 
party fight in 1916, he would have felt quite 
responsible for the reelection of Wilson and that 
would have been intolerable to him. His antip¬ 
athy to Wilson was most sincere, although I 
thought it was often unjustified. “Of course I 
feel much more strongly about Wilson than you 
do, 55 he wrote in 1916. He had no more faith in 
Wilson’s loftiness of spirit than Wilson had in his. 
78 




The Four Horsemen Came 



To go without sugar and create new poison gases 


—To me both men had unusually high conceptions 
^of public service, but, in philosophy, both were 
•'Such opportunists that their methods could be 
v easily criticized and their achievements belittled 
''by opponents. But it was the same torch (of 
progressive national leadership) that Roosevelt 
79 









Tents of the Mighty 


had borne which later fell from the palsied hand 
of Wilson, and was plucked up again by La- 
Follette, who had carried it long before in years 
of bitter loneliness. 

We entered the World War. The years of 
confusion and hysteria began — a period that 
can be chronicled only in detached sentences and 
broken paragraphs. The disorder of life compels 
a disorderly recital. Here was a time when it 
became noble to do such strange things — to go 
without sugar and to create new poison gases; 
to shout for democracy and to enthrone dictators; 
to be careful of money and careless of life; to 
teach men to love one another and the best way 
to disembowel an opponent. I inhaled all the. 
^"certified nonsense which I could and exhaled it 
-in churches, in circus tents, in theaters and school¬ 
rooms, wherever a crowd of people could be 
—gathered for mass poisoning. One old Swedish 
minister alone reviewed my labors adequately. 
When I left the pulpit, from which his God had 
been temporarily excluded so that I might talk 
“Liberty Loans , 55 the clergyman quietly an¬ 
nounced that the services would be concluded by 
the congregation singing, “our favorite hymn, 
‘Revive us again 5 ! 55 They sang every verse of it 
80 




The Four Horsemen Came 


too, while my comrades in the rear of the church 
hugged themselves and choked down their 
laughter. 

Hardest of all problems in this period for me 
to understand was why it was noble and just to 
give services to the common need without ade¬ 
quate compensation, but why at the same time 
it was necessary and righteous to offer extraor¬ 
dinary rewards to persuade men to contribute 
their property to the same great cause. It was 
clear that millions of families simply could not 
live unless some one earned a living. It was 
equally clear that millions of acres of buildings 
and machinery would be just as serviceable pay¬ 
ing three per cent as if they were paying thirty 
per cent. Yet men could be got for nothing and 
money commanded huge profits in war time. 
When I had finally puzzled out this problem, I 

• realized that alternate eras, of war with profiteer¬ 
ing and peace with poverty, would continue as 
dong as the system that inevitably produced these 

• results remained the perfect flower of our time- 

• honored social ignorance. Now I knew, at least, 
•that Roosevelt progressivism was not enough — 
/and that the barren dogmatism of state socialism 
•offered nothing but political acceptance and per- 

81 





Tents of the Mighty 


. petuation of existing evils. In this mood I wrote 
“Democratization of Industry” — a speculative 
article that merely hinted at the falsity of our 
industrial conception that the war was so ruth¬ 
lessly uncovering. It was interesting (i) to note 
the first appearance of the same phrase in a 
subsequent presidential message of Wilson (De¬ 
cember 2, 1919), (2) to find the article quoted 
extensively in a later book (“Industry and 
Humanity”) by the Prime Minister of Canada, 
Mackenzie King, and (3) to read the following 
extract from a letter written by Roosevelt, May 
18, 1917: 

“Now, as to your article. Not only do I 
agree with it, of course, but curiously enough in 
something I wrote a couple of months ago I used 
the same idea. If the Metropolitan ever publishes 
it, I hope you will see it.” 

'i The truth is that no man of any political in¬ 
telligence and economic vision has been able to 
••defend the existing economic order since the 
eWorld War laid bare its utter inadequacy and its 
^insane consequences. Only powerful fools with 
• money and timid fools who serve them sing with 
'•any enthusiasm the old songs in praise of things 
82 




The Four Horsemen Came 


• as they are. But millions of time-servers, rich 
and poor, who suspect the words are false and 
the tune worn-out, join in the chorus for the same 
futile reason that we still sing the songs of wars 
that ended long ago. It is easier to sing old songs 
than to learn new ones. 

What a time of fog and lightning was that 
period of the war! Great clouds of doubt con¬ 
stantly obscuring the old, familiar certainties, with 
now and then a flash of lightning that revealed 
things never seen before. 

* Chicago stockyards were feeding the world. 
You might not go there in a search for social 
intelligence, but you might reasonably anticipate 
finding large deposits of business brains and in¬ 
tegrity. Indeed some of the most capable and 
likable men I have known, made their fortunes 
in the “yards.” But there were also in positions 
of great power more conspicuous men, whose un¬ 
fitness for high responsibility was tragically dem¬ 
onstrated before and during the great war. This 
comment is not based on hearsay. 

Of three great houses — my father had saved 
the fortunes of one of them more than once, hav¬ 
ing served as its legal adviser for many years. 
“Hog Everything” should have been emblazoned 

83 




Tents of the Mighty 


on its coat of arms and stamped with the govern¬ 
ment label on every ham. The confidential agent 
of another house, having made wealth for others 
by extensive lying and evasion of laws, decided to 
grab a fortune for himself. As his former masters 
pursued him vengefully to an early grave, I list¬ 
ened to his story of the lawless, cruel game played 
by the “hog butchers for the world” — a story 
partly told in dust-covered government records, 
which have been read only by a few “radicals” 
and by them soon forgotten. There was a third 
house which was bankrupt when the war began, 
intolerably wealthy when the war was ended, 
bankrupt again a few years afterward. These 
houses furnished some examples of the “business 
genius,” which the rising generation was advised 
to emulate. 

Tt was to the head of this third house that I 
went during the war to protest — not in the name 
•of humanity, but of “patriotism” —at labor con- 
* ditions which were sure to bring a strike and to 
'disorganize the food supplies for the men “over 
k there.” “How can I talk about 'democracy 5 
when you make a mockery of the word in the 
Yards?” was my complaint. And this employer 
of thousands and feeder of millions was feebly 
84 




The Four Horsemen Came 



Men wasting fifteen hours for four hours pay 

and vaguely distressed at the charge — which he 
was sure was not justified. Individual employes 
had told me the facts which investigators had 
confirmed. I knew more of actual conditions 
than the owner of the plant was willing to know. 
I told of men called in the middle of the night 

85 















Tents of the Mighty 


for a little work, waiting hours for more work, 
wasting fifteen hours for four hours pay; told 
of working conditions, cold, damp, filthy and 
ruinous to health, of wages utterly inadequate to 
meet the mounting cost of living. 

4 'Give me the names,” he replied, “and I will 
see that the right thing is done.” That I could 
not do; could not violate confidences and expose 
men to discharge. “Individual wrongs are not 
the main issue. The point I am making,” I re¬ 
iterated, “is that you must have labor organiza¬ 
tion. Instead of fighting it, you should help the 
men to organize, so you can know how the men 
feel and what they want, so they can express 
themselves. They will be organized anyhow, 
with your blessing or despite you. But your pres¬ 
ent attitude means a strike.” 

He assured me that they had taken care of 
that; they had “arrangements with the govern¬ 
ment” — whatever that meant. There would be 
no strike. I departed, much to his relief. This 
strange interview with a “respectable” who did 
not respect his ability visibly disconcerted him — 
although I left with him a copy of “Democratiza¬ 
tion of Industry” to restore his equanimity. He 
would see that I was just a “theorist” to be 
86 





The Four Horsemen Came 


properly disregarded by a c practical’ 5 business 
man. 

% Within a short time there was a great strike 
♦ under way in the packing plants. The govern- 
v>ment had to intervene and wages were raised by 
6 government order. Shortly thereafter this house 
w decided to organize its own employes in a gentle, 

— well-controlled company union. They had, at 
v least, learned that some kind of labor organization 
*was necessary, years after every intelligent stu¬ 
dent of industrial conditions knew of the necessity. 
So they produced a cheap ineffective social soap, to r" 
match their commercial product — both strongly 
perfumed and well advertised! 

The world was at war. America was moving 
the legions of its young men across the ocean. 
But Roosevelt, the great inspirer of youth — the 
courageous, most popular leader of our time, re¬ 
mained at home. “This is a very exclusive war, 5 V 
he said during one of his passages through Chi¬ 
cago, “and I have been blackballed by the com¬ 
mittee on admissions. 55 He grinned amiably at 
me as he spoke, but there was pain in the eyes of 
the old warrior denied his rightful place in the 
most terrible conflict of the ages. I had read 
carefully the correspondence between T. R. and 

87 





Tents of the Mighty 


Secretary Baker. Somehow the reasons for the re¬ 
jection of Roosevelt seemed incomplete. I reread 
a letter Baker had written me in 1912, about the 
progressive party: “My difficulty with it is in 
its leader, but we are too far apart to quarrel on 
that subject.” That completed the picture. Nei¬ 
ther Wilson nor Baker was desirous of using 
Roosevelt’s leadership during the war. “Ap¬ 
parently Mr. Wilson is concerned solely with his 
own political fortunes” — wrote the Colonel in 
August, 1917. “He will do anything either to 
help or to hurt the country precisely as doing so 
does or does not help or hurt him politically.” 
This was the unjust anger of a justly embittered 
man. His previous statements had been more 
accurate: 

^ “Remember, however, that the instant the 
war began I put myself unreservedly at the dis¬ 
posal of the administration. I heartily backed it 
for having gone to war, and I have backed every¬ 
one of its actions I possibly could. The Admin¬ 
istration took every means, directly and indirectly 
not merely to refuse my aid, but to injure me 
personally because I had offered aid; and so far 
as it was safe, it made it evident it would do the 
direct reverse of anything I suggested.” 

88 




The Four Horsemen Came 


The difficulty, for one in command of great 
affairs, of working with powerful men of opposing 
ideas and temperaments is obvious. One can 
readily understand Wilson’s distaste for a truly 
non-partisan prosecution of the war. In addition 
his natural bias in favor of drawing party lines 
(which was revealed in the blundering demand 
for a “democratic” Congress in 1918) would have 
made it difficult for him to imitate the perhaps 
disheartening example of Lincoln. Nevertheless, 
it is likely that history will record Wilson’s neglect 
and humiliation of other great leaders of his time 
as significant of the limitations of his leadership. 

To me there is another significance in the 
Roosevelt-Wilson feud that is well worth consid¬ 
ering. Each man was a great spokesman for the 
popular demand that good fruit should be pro- 
^^duced from rotting trees. Neither man exhibited 
^any radical program on economic issues. Despite 
their intellectual criticisms, both men assumed 
^That the philosophies of barbarism must con- 
^tinue to be the foundation stones of civilization; 
^and while demanding fair play and a square deal 
^ did not expect to receive either from an oppo- 
^ nent — and, naturally, were seldom surprised in 
- what they got! 


89 





Tents of the Mighty 


A quotation from Herbert Spencer hits the 
mark: “Conservatism defends those coercive ar¬ 
rangements which a still-lingering savageness 
makes requisite. Radicalism endeavors to realize 
a State more in harmony with the character of 
>the ideal man.” 

Roosevelt read a book of mine during a 
journey and wrote while still on the train: “But, 
essentially the lesson you teach is just, and is one 
that ought to be taught; indeed which it is im¬ 
peratively necessary to have taught. The big re¬ 
ward, if society is to remain healthy, must be 
given for service and not for exploitation of a 
man’s fellows.” He meant that. But in his daily 
contacts, he expected to find most men busy 
exploiting and very few rendering service. He 
expected that big rewards would go to exploiters 
and that public servants would get the crumbs. 
So he wrote to Mr. Harriman that “you and I 
are practical men” — and later described Mr. 
Harriman as an “undesirable citizen.” Where¬ 
fore, Messrs. Wilson and Baker thought him in¬ 
sincere and did not trust him. And moved by 
similar reasoning the Colonel wrote to me six 
weeks after we had entered the war (May 18, 
1917): “No man can honestly praise Mr. Wil- 
90 




The Four Horsemen Came 


son’s message of April 3rd to Congress, without 
unstintingly blaming him for all his previous 
two and a half years of insincere and double¬ 
dealing conduct and hypocritical speech making, 
which did more to lower the tone of the American 
people than anything that has happened since 
the days of Buchanan.” These two men simply 
could not understand each other — and when I 
come to the end of my story, perhaps the reason 
will be visible. 

There were other misunderstandings of this 
period deeply significant of the viciousness of the 
war spirit. Many of us now can look back upon 
the heroic efforts of men like LaFollette and 
Norris in the Senate, of men like Robert Lovett in 
the universities, of women like Jane Addams, and 
feel a little small and ashamed that, even if we 
did not join with those whojscowled^and ^at 
upon^them . . . yet we watched them through 
troubled, puzzted eyes. Why should they seek 
to appeal to reason when it was no^ time for 
doubting and debate? The die was cast. We 
had decided that we were eternally right and 
that the other side was eternally wrong. We 
were going to prove it by beating them down 
9 1 





Tents of the Mighty 


with our fists, by shooting them full of holes, by 
blowing them into pieces, by smothering them 
with poison gas. If we didn’t do it to them they 
would do it to us. 

There was the real war spirit. We were 
afraid. Above all things we were afraid to stop 
and think. Afraid that our will would weaken. 
Fear dominated everywhere and only the brass 
horns and the drums and brazen voices and 
hysterical singing helped to stifle our fears. Yet 
these men wanted us to stop and think, to stop 
singing and yelling, to sit still and think — which 
would bring us no comfort — only “doubt, hesi¬ 
tation and pain.” So we classed the wise men 
and women who retained control of their brains 
with the fools who had no brains (there were 
plenty of these in evidence) and we, who had 
given our brains over to the government, and 
rather enjoyed the mental rest, were puzzled and 
a bit disappointed over our friends who not only 
continued to think for themselves but even in¬ 
sisted on thinking out loud. 

Thus we prepared for the final dissolution of 
the progressive movement. To doubt, to question 
jthe wisdom of the powers that be, to advance new 
(and disturbing ideas, had ceased to be an act of 
92 




The Four Horsemen Came 


virtue, the proof of an aspiring spirit. Such atti¬ 
tudes were “radical 55 and “destructive. 55 Soon 
they were to become something even more 
^wicked. Bolshevistic! Progressivism was losing 
<_its supreme asset — respectability. 

The last year of the war reappears to me as a 
year of death. Before many of the younger lives 
were blotted out across the sea, my tired father 
closed his eyes — and then the kind words, too 
long withheld, were spoken in personal letters 
and formal resolutions. Midshipman in the Navy 
in the Civil War — president of the Board of Edu¬ 
cation for Chicago, commissioner of uniform laws 
for Illinois. When his college conferred its high¬ 
est degree upon him, the president could well 
speak of long years of uncompensated service to 
city, state and nation. 

This personal loss came in February, 1918. 
Soon after began the holocaust of youth — the 
pride of this family and the hope of that, the 
j oyous boy of years gone by, the anticipated leader 
of years to come. They died over there — for 
“democracy. 55 Roosevelt’s son, Quentin. One 
must write ^something to him; but what? A 
postcard was received in the morning mail from 
93 




Tents of the Mighty 


a dear friend; and a paragraph appeared in the 
evening newspaper, stating that the writer was 
dead. A home guard patriot stopped me in the 
suburban station—“I think-is actually dis¬ 

loyal — don’t you? Think of demanding to know 
what we are fighting for?” “He must be dis¬ 
loyal,” was my curt answer, “his only son was 
killed in battle the other day.” Of course, it was 
no time to ask what we were fighting for. We 
must be sure that it was something noble and 
splendid or we would all go mad. How could 
a father, mother, wife, sweetheart, brother, sister 
or even a friend ask why “he” had marched 
away? The world was in fact already mad and 
we could only ask, as I did, that — 

When this madness pass 
Bitter and bleeding left, it may be sane; 
Beneath the soldier’s bandage, eyes 
Long blinded may begin to see. 

— How ashamed and skulking I felt when an ur¬ 
gent request came to take up some war work in 
Washington. The salary wouldn’t even pay the 
rent bills of those I was supporting — and land¬ 
lords were not reducing rents, even to gold star 
mothers. Then the grateful friend of whom I 
94 






The Four Horsemen Came 



It was no time to ask what we were fighting for 


have previously written prevented the President 
from appointing me to the Federal Trade Com¬ 
mission, where, in slashing my income and trying 
to render a definite public service, I could have 
95 










Tents of the Might/ 


felt that I was more useful through war time than 
in merely fighting the public utility profiteers of 
Chicago. So I resigned myself to having no ef¬ 
fective part in saving the world for democracy; 
even refusing to join in the pleasant game of war 
politics, through which some of my brethren at 
the bar blossomed out in officers’ uniforms that 
summer, without deserting their profitable offices 
or acquiring any evident military intelligence. 

Then came the Armistice (preceded by the 
false dawn) and immediately thereafter could be 
heard on every side the brittle rustling of falling 
leaves. It was as though a hard frost overnight 
had killed the rank growth of war emotions and 
ideals. The murmur of private interests rose into 
a great wind that swept across the land, stripping 
the trees of public service bare. The hopes of 
youth were thick as they fell; and there came 
back to me many times the prophecy of Jane 
Addams when the European war began in 1914: 
“This will set back progress for a generation.” It 
certainly stalled progress for my generation. We 
had our long night of bestial intoxication. Then 
came the dreadful headache in the cold gray 
dawn; and before us lay the long day when we 
96 




The Four Horsemen Came 


should struggle dizzily to put the house of carnival 
again in order. We would be haggard and weary 
in the afternoon and ready for our beds early in 
the evening! 

Something of this sense of frustration gripped 
me as I lay in bed recovering from influenza, 
shortly after New Year 1919. There was one 
hope of a fight for something worth while still 
left. Wilson had been defeated in the fall elec¬ 
tions of 1918. In the swing back to the republi¬ 
cans, there was only one first-class leader in sight. 
The old guard must swallow its animosities and 
turn to him. In fact I knew of certain recent 
overtures that were quite significant. . . . The 
telephone rang. A reporter for an afternoon pa¬ 
per w r as on the wire: Did I know that Roosevelt 
had died in his sleep the night before? ... I 
w as w eak with fever. I could only press my face 
into the pillow and cry like a child. There were 
many others who wept that day. 

With the stopping of the war and the death of 
Roosevelt, we came to the end of an era in Amer¬ 
ica. It is true that Wilson lived a little longer 
and that some Wilsonian leadership survived in 
a measure until 192^. It is true that LaFollette, 
97 ” 




Tents of the Might/ 


the forerunner of both Roosevelt and Wilson, 
rallied a polyglot army for a last campaign in 
1924. It is true that Bryan lingered on to partici¬ 
pate ingloriously in the Battle of Dayton where 
the simian ancestry of mankind was demonstrated 
by those who denied it. But, regardless of these 
twilight activities, the day was done and the im- 
v pulse of that progressivism which had inspired 
my generation ceased at the end of the World 
War when the first of its four great leaders died. 

Fortunately for me, with the beginning of a 
new era, my own work swung me out of the old 
struggle into the new conflict that will engross 
the energies of the first generation of youth that 
can see where the new battle lines are being 
drawn. Before 1919 it was interesting to feel 
that we had enlisted in an army of progress, that 
we were battling to carry forward the nation 
against the opposition of those who would lead 
a retreat and “turn back the hands of the clock. 55 
(Metaphors were always a bit mixed in our emo¬ 
tional gatherings.) 

But since 1919 it has been clearly indicated 
that this nation, with its wealth and aggressive 
leadership, is going forward somewhere for a 
long time to come. We are not going back some- 




The Four Horsemen Came 


where. There are, however, alternative direc¬ 
tions in which we may progress. Toward more 
jdemocracy and freedom, or more autocracy and 
(control. Toward more idealism and faith, or 
more materialism and superstition. Toward more 
general prosperity, or a richer rich and a poorer 
poor. 

We stood at Armageddon and demanded that 
the economic rulers — the invisible government 
— cease to rule us, a preposterous demand that - 
those who had the power to rule should forswear - 
tfyeir authority. But of recent years the invisible 
government has grown strong enough to become 
visible. This visible government is the inevitable 
growth of certain institutions of government. 
These institutions were the natural product of 
habits and customs and beliefs that are the foun¬ 
dation of^ll law. If our habits, our customs and 
our beliefs have changed, there must come 
changes in institutions if we are to have a repre¬ 
sentative and not an imposed government. 

The progressivism that will succeed Roosevelt 
progressivism will demand some radical changes v 
in government to correspond with radical changes v, 
in habits, customs and beliefs that came into the 
lives of the people during the period from the end 
99 




Tents of the Mighty 


of the Civil War to the end of the World War. 
It will be a new generation, not bred into the 
old ways, that will catch the vision of a new day 
and will seek a new highway to our ancient goal. 

In the wandering footprints of the confused 
leadership of the last eight years, there appears 
no path of promise; but there are some indica¬ 
tions of the direction in which the young men and 
^women of tomorrow will probably move when 
they become weary of marching round and 
round in the footsteps of their fathers. 


ioo 





IV 

THE SPOILS OF NORMALCY 


-TV? 



TO MISLEAD AND CONFUSE POPULAR THINKING 


















IV 

THE SPOILS OF NORMALCY 

Many timid souls thought that the collapse 
of pre-war progressivism marked the end of dan¬ 
gerous new ideas — not realizing that the good 
government of Roosevelt and Wilson was only 
the government of Mark Hanna deodorized and 
that William Jennings Bryan pursued happiness 
along the street called straight by John D. Rocke- 
fefier. The conspicuous leadership of this “pro¬ 
gressive 55 era brought forward no new idea. No 
martyrs were crucified. Victors and vanquished 
alike achieved “success 55 and left “respectable 55 
names and fortunes to their heirs. 

Yet in the natural order of things, by 1914, the 
time had come for intelligent persons to ask “Why 
Prosperity? 55 “Is it enough? 55 “What shall we 
do with it? 55 “Where do we go from here? 55 In 
truth many intelligent persons were beginning to 
ask these questions and to discuss them in private; 
were getting ready to enrage the high priests and 
to cause annoyance to Herod. Then, just as fem¬ 
inism, prohibition, modernism, behaviorism, de- 
103 


Tents of the Mighty 


terminism, communism and fascism were emerging 
from academic incubators, the World War burst 
upon us with its horribly cruel demand that mil¬ 
lions and millions of happy, innocent people 
should either think or else die without thinking. 

To meet this terrible emergency a new leader¬ 
ship arose over night — men who knew something 
about how to save people from thinking — men 
who had thought about this grave problem every 
now and then for years — editors, advertising 
men; managers of theaters, circuses and cham¬ 
bers of commerce; teachers, writers; all the 
trained “moulders of public opinion. 55 This en¬ 
larged Fourth Estate brushed aside the embar¬ 
rassed clergy and the fuddled politicians and 
bellowed into the newsprint megaphones: “Fol- 
A low us. There is no need to think. Follow us 
and live or die without thinking. 55 Under this 
guidance the advertiser’s theory that anything 
could be proved by repetition became accepted 
as the discovery of a natural law, indicating that 
posterity would rank P. T. Barnum with Galileo 
and Newton. 

When the war ended the people looked around 
for new leaders — since the process of making 
peace had destroyed those who had been too busy 
104 





The Spoils of Normalcy 


making war to have developed acceptable ideas 
about making peace. And the new leadership 
of peace promptly adopted the successful tech¬ 
nique of the war leadership — Usurpation and 
Command, supported by camouflage and propa¬ 
ganda. 

The prohibitionists were sure that alcohol was 
a social evil. They commanded it to go and the 
politicians bowed to the Command. They had 
learned during the war to bow or be broken. 
Their heads were bloody and much bowed. 

The communists of Russia were sure that a 
Marxian State would be a social good. They 
commanded it to come and it came. 

Mussolini was sure that he was good for Italy. 
Fascism became the voice of the Command and 
Mussolini produced from what was “left” of labor 
the divine “right” of capital. 

Intelligent women were sure that short hair 
and shorter skirts would be more comfortable. 
So the Command went forth, cleverly propa¬ 
gandized from the fashion centers of Paris and 
New York, and behold the tyranny of centuries 
of Tabu was overthrown in a season! 

But this flouting of old authority — of Church 
and State and Mrs. Grundy — could not be con- 
105 





Tents of the Mighty 


fined to the intelligent. They had led the mob 
against the Law and the mob would go on. The 
Sermon on the Mount, good government, hard 
work, independence, wives, children and para¬ 
dise on earth — all the objectives of intelligence 
in the pre-war period had been attacked by the 
intelligent and the herd had followed them. Pros¬ 
perity alone remained a common desire; and 
the common means was: Go get it! The hard 
flapper, the soft sheik, the bootlegger, the auto¬ 
mobile bandit, the real estate boomer, the race 
track gambler, the bathing beauty, the star ath¬ 
lete, the political crook and the political briber, 
all found the way to prosperity — to the hotel 
in Palm Beach, or the jail in Atlanta. 

Thus came a great hour of freedom — free¬ 
dom from moral responsibility — freedom from 
fears of hell and hopes of paradise. Prohibition¬ 
ists free to put poison in alcohol and bacchana¬ 
lians free to lap it up. Captains of industry free 
to buy public officials and public officials free 
to sell themselves. Fascism free to terrorize Italy 
and Italian gunmen free to terrorize Chicago. 
Reds free to kill Whites in Moscow and Whites 
free to kill Reds in Massachusetts. Ku Kluxers 
free to horsewhip people in one State of Ignorance 
106 




The Spoils of Normalcy 



Materialism became the dominant political philosophy 


and people free to horsewhip Ku Kluxers in an¬ 
other. Everybody free to destroy the freedom of 
everybody else by invoking Invisible Authority 
with a gun, or a newspaper, or a call of the clan. 
Prosperity — the one standard, recognized ideal 
107 





Tents of the Might/ 


of living. No other gods. Hell where it was not 
and heaven where it was. 

Materialism became the dominant political 
philosophy because all parties had long espoused 
it. For more than a generation the conservative 
right wing had exalted private property and the 
radical left had clamored for public property and 
the progressive oscillating center had advocated 
private property refined by public obligations. 
But property and prosperity had filled the thoughts 
of all parties. The composite leadership of social 
ideas had insisted on a government of the stom¬ 
ach, by the stomach and for the stomach. An in¬ 
ebriated statesman once described this ideal with 
great accuracy as a ‘‘government of the belly- 
best minds . 55 With the end of the World War 
a government dedicated to this ideal was estab¬ 
lished in the United States by almost unanimous 
consent. Thereafter the spoils of normalcy rip¬ 
ened in the Harding Summer, turned golden 
at the touch of Fall and rotted in the Winter of 
LaFollette’s discontent. 

For many years before Teapot Dome demon¬ 
strated to a submissive populace, the exact mech¬ 
anism for bribing a cabinet officer, or before 
Samuel Insull reluctantly published some of his 
108 





The Spoils of Normalcy 


private investments in public officials, I had la¬ 
bored in close contact with that “invisible gov¬ 
ernment 55 in Chicago and Washington, which was 
destined to become so visible after the Ohio gang 
had captured the White House. For many years 
before the Oil Smear when big business men and 
national political leaders were joined in indict¬ 
ments and tried as common criminals in the 
District of Columbia, while their hired detectives 
hounded public officials, shadowed jurymen and 
even “framed” a United States Senator, I had 
been experiencing this sort of persecution as a 
public servant of the City of Chicago. And since 
my experiences involved not only the same forces, 
but also many of the same men who were later 
to go on view in the national “show up,” there 
is both reason and value in narrating some of 
my adventures during a ten-year fight against 
the control of government by public utilities in 
pursuit of private profits. 

The manner in which the Peoples Gas Light & 
Coke Company fought a lawsuit against the City 
of Chicago certainly furnished me with a liberal 
education in government according to “business 
principles.” As soon as I had been named special 
counsel for the City (in 1915), a private detective 
109 





Tents of the Mighty 


agency was employed to shadow me, with instruc¬ 
tions to report everything I did and everybody I 
saw — and particularly anything that might pro¬ 
vide material for scandal or blackmail. This 
sleuthing was carried on in the clumsy way stand¬ 
ardized by the best advertised agencies, so that 
I was soon aware of it. After one or two strangers 
have introduced themselves as long forgotten 
boyhood friends; after numerous sly inquiries 
have been made of office employes and house¬ 
hold servants; after you have observed the same 
freckled-faced young man in elevators in four 
different buildings in the same day, you may 
begin to suspect that you are being trailed by 
the “sleepless eye 55 or the “wizard of secret serv¬ 
ice. 55 Thereafter, if you don’t mind the annoy¬ 
ance, you can have a good deal of fun at the 
expense of the enemy. 

There were other methods of harassing a law¬ 
yer that were not so amusing. The conduct of the 
first judge before whom I appeared was so scandal¬ 
ous that I presented a petition to the entire Cir¬ 
cuit Court of twenty judges, asking that this case 
be taken away from the feeble-minded old man 
who insisted on hearing it contrary to the rules 
of the court and in violation of settled principles 
no 





The Spoils of Normalcy 


of law. It was notorious that this judge was in 
his dotage and the gas company lawyers played 
on his eccentric ideas with scoffing disregard for 
a decent administration of justice. After a public 
airing of this situation and a bitter conflict among 
the judges, the case was transferred to the chief 
justice of the court, and then, after a peculiar 
struggle, this action was sustained by the Supreme 
Court of the state. 

Meanwhile, by pulling wires in the city hall, 
payment of all my accounts had been prevented 
— so that for nearly a year, not a dollar was paid 
for the expenses or fees of myself or my associate 
counsel — the late Glenn E. Plumb of whom I 
shall write more later. When the funds were 
finally released, new devices were found for delay 
so that I would have been literally starved out of 
the case, except that at one time I found a wealthy 
man with a kind heart and a civic conscience who 
advanced several thousand dollars; and at an¬ 
other time a friendly banker came to our relief. 

Less than a year after the fight began, a court 
order had been issued compelling the gas com¬ 
pany, for the first time in its history, to give city 
accountants and engineers complete access to its 
books and properties, so that public officials could 
hi 





Tents of the Mighty 


value the properties and analyze operating ex¬ 
penses and determine what were reasonable gas 
rates. All this battle could have been avoided 
if I had been willing to name a chief investigator 
“acceptable 55 to the company. That, naturally, 
I declined to do. Not long afterward I received 
a telephone call from Samuel Insull, who was 
chairman of the board of the gas company (as 
well as president of the electric company), with 
an offer to negotiate a settlement. 

He said he wanted “peace 55 — although he 
added truculently — “not peace at any price. 55 

The terms of “peace 55 were arranged during 
several months of public negotiation. The com¬ 
pany offered to refund one-third of the ten mil¬ 
lion dollar overcharge which we were seeking to 
recover. Both sides agreed that gas rates should 
be reduced and that the company should be per¬ 
mitted to reduce the heating value of the gas and 
to eliminate the old wasteful “flat flame burner. 55 
These changes were in line with progress in the 
industry. Unfortunately the aldermen were daz¬ 
zled by a $3,000,000 offer for a claim regarded 
as of very doubtful value a year before, and their 
committee refused to settle the lawsuit. Still more 
unfortunately the company, after accepting a city 
112 




The Spoils of Normalcy 


ordinance (in the summer of 1917) reducing both 
rates and quality of gas, demanded a few months 
later that the public utilities commission should 
permit it to break its contract and to charge still 
higher rates for the poorer gas. 

The company had accepted in writing an 
ordinance and had made a contract for a period 
of years, providing for a permanent adjustment 
of the questions that had been fought for over 
fifty years — a most “progressive 55 ordinance, 
which regulated by agreement both rates for the 
consumers and profits for the investors. But 
Mr. InsulPs lawyers shamelessly asserted that 
their contract was worthless and that they had 
so regarded it when they signed it! By this time 
America was in the World War. The English-born 
Insull was not only the accredited representative 
of much British money in America and the most 
powerful public utility operator in Chicago, but he 
was also chairman of the State Council of Defense. 

Thus in the evening, as a speaker for the State 
Council, it was my patriotic task to discuss the 
sanctity of a “scrap of paper 55 — that sacred con¬ 
tract which was being upheld by the blood of the 
allied soldiery. And in the daytime it was equally 
my patriotic task to denounce the head of the 




Tents of the Mighty 


State Council as a “gold plated anarchist” who 
regarded his contract with the city for public 
service as only a “scrap of paper,” which he re¬ 
fused to honor. Across the ocean millions of men 
were fighting “for democracy”—they told us. 
But it appeared that democracy had need for a 
few soldiers in the home guard as well. 

My law-partner refused to accept an annual 
retainer offered by Mr. Insull. But the “former” 
(and future) partner of the head of the city law 
department drew $14,000 a year from the gas 
company. Then when the fight was hottest, this 
Corporation Counsel of Chicago (named Samuel 
Ettelson) attempted to “discharge” me; and the 
mayor “Big Bill” Thompson (to whose election 
Samuel Insull had contributed $100,000) backed 
up the two Sams. But the smell of tainted money 
rose stronger than the stockyards odor. Even 
the roar of battles overseas could not drown pub¬ 
lic clamor, and the City Council voted three times 
over the mayor’s veto to retain my services. An 
honest judge upheld the Council—and was subse¬ 
quently denied reelection by Insull politicians! 

During this pleasant period, I had to file an 
affidavit in court concerning the early gaseous 
activities of Roger Sullivan at the State Capitol — 
114 




The Spoils of Normalcy 


and the big boss (who was Insull’s chief political 
adviser) came roaring into my office one morning, 
threatening me with various forms of annihilation 
because I had 4 ‘falsely accused 55 him. Being met 
with a grin and a question as to what was false 
in my charges, he sat down and told me the whole 
story of the twenty-year-old scandal, confirming 
not only my charges, but many rumors that I had 
not included. Finally, having relieved his soul, 
he departed, saying: “Now that’s the true story. 
But if you ever tell what I told you I’ll say you’re 
a damn liar! 55 

Sullivan was not the only man who resorted 
to empty threats when impeded or annoyed. In 
February, 1918, Samuel Insull walked into the 
office of one of my closest friends and announced 
that if I did not stop attacking him, he would 
publicly “denounce” me and my father — with¬ 
out specifying for what crimes. Since my father 
had died only a few days before (which Insull 
knew) the making of this unconscionable threat 
was well calculated to whip me into a blind rage. 
In fact, I struggled with myself for many days to 
regain self-control. Spies were following me 
everywhere. Anonymous telephone calls some¬ 
times brought threats and sometimes offered val- 

115 






Tents of the Mighty 


uable information if I would meet the speaker 
(male or female) at some dubious rendezvous — 
which I never kept. Long afterward a city police¬ 
man told me of his assignment to follow me (and 
the private detectives who were on the same trail). 
He said that in police circles it was confidently ex¬ 
pected that I would be “rubbed out. 55 

Finally my patience snapped. Not having 
been sufficiently trained in big business methods 
this kind of warfare was getting on my nerves. 
I made an appointment with a former school¬ 
mate, who was one of InsulPs lawyers, and told 
him that I would stand no more. I had state¬ 
ments signed by detectives who had followed me. 
I had corroborating evidence of attempted black¬ 
mail and bribery from various sources. I was 
prepared to attack the men who were fighting me, 
with charges that must be heard. “In the end, 55 
I said, “they will probably ruin me. That I 
recognize. But if I go down, there are plenty of 
big names that will go down with me. I want 
you to go back and tell Mr. Insull that I am not 
interested in disclaimers of personal responsibil¬ 
ity; that I will not stand any more and that if 
this campaign of terrorism does not stop, I will 
expose the whole dirty business. 55 

116 





The Spoils of Normalcy 


Two hours later, as I sat in a committee 
meeting in the City Hall denouncing the Corpora¬ 
tion Counsel as a betrayer of the city, another 
Insull lawyer slipped up to me and whispered: 
“The Chief told me to tell you that there would 
be no personal attack unless you started it.” 
From that time on the opposition flattened out. 
Newspaper men, who had been tipped off to the 
terrible things that were about to happen to me, 
waited in vain for the promised stories. Within 
a month the City Council had passed an ordi¬ 
nance, by a two-thirds vote over the mayor’s veto, 
creating the office of “Special Counsel in Gas 
Matters,” as an official position superior in its 
special duties to the Corporation Counsel, and 
had named me in the ordinance itself as this 
Special Counsel. This position I held until I 
resigned in 1927; and after 1918 my authority 
was never questioned. 

These incidents in the long gas fight, which 
I have sketched briefly, will not demonstrate, but 
they may indicate, where we are going in the 
conflict between public and private government. 
Hundreds of private wars such as mine have been 
started in this country, but the few victories won 
for the people are brief triumphs. The individual 

1 17 






Tents of the Mighty 


public servant cannot fight the machine for long. 
He is forced out, or scared out, or bought out, 
or starved out, or tired out, or — in a host of 
cases — he is absorbed into the machine. Either 
he is given a better public job, with the under¬ 
standing that he will be “good, 55 or he is given a 
private job where he must be good. During my 
long struggle with the gas company, I saw added 
to the company payroll a public utility com¬ 
missioner, a corporation counsel, a United States 
senator, a justice of the state Supreme Court, a tax 
assessor and a host of other former public officials. 
I saw “safe 55 aldermen elevated to the bench and 
“unsafe 55 aldermen driven out of politics. I saw 
“Big Bill 55 Thompson twice elected as the Insull 
candidate; once repudiated by the people; and 
then returned to office carrying the Insull colors. 
And in the interim we had Mayor Dever, per¬ 
sonally honorable and clean, but behind whom 
marched the machine of George Brennan, the 
successor of Sullivan in Insull’s bi-partisan politi¬ 
cal system. 

Millions of dollars were saved to gas con¬ 
sumers in our twelve-year fight in Chicago — but 
millions more would have been saved if more of 
our city and state officials had been honest, in- 
118 





The Spoils of Normalcy 


stead of hopelessly corrupt. It was only a freak 
of fate that permitted me to keep on fighting. 
As a police official said to me: “It was your 
friends, like Roosevelt, that had them buffaloed.” 
It was too dangerous to rub me out of the picture 
by coarse methods and those of refined strategy 
failed. According to this same police officer, for 
example, there was high excitement in Decem¬ 
ber, 1915, when I left my office suddenly, and 
literally ran through the streets to catch the Cen¬ 
tury for New York. Just behind me hurried 
detective number one. Further back, detective 
number two scuttled along the sidewalks. In 
the extreme rear was a friendly city policeman. 

Too late my undesired guardians learned that 
I was going to New York. As they were unable 
to get authority to travel along, arrangements 
were made to have me met at the train and thus 
escorted around the metropolis. But at my ho¬ 
tel, the trail was again lost; so I went to Oyster 
Bay unattended, spent some time there with 
Roosevelt and an editor, going over a series of 
articles which the Colonel had written. Then 
we drove back to New York after dark in the 
editor’s car. I found a long list of fictitious tele¬ 
phone calls in my hotel letter box, showing the 
ii9 




Tents of the Mighty 


persistent efforts made by detectives to reestab¬ 
lish “contact.” 

This list I have preserved carefully as one of 
those exhibits which I would like to offer in evi¬ 
dence if the long waiting case of The Republic v. 
The Underworld of Big Business is called for 
trial some day. It was really a pity that the comic 
bloodhounds had lost the trail. How they would 
have enjoyed reporting the visit to Oyster Bay, 
together with some wise speculations as to its 
purpose! 

Without going into further details I may finish 
the Chicago gas episode by stating that after 
years of man-killing labor, we obtained from the 
State Commission, in December, 1920, a valua¬ 
tion of the gas company property at $85,000,000. 
This valuation was finally maintained after a long 
struggle in the courts, the final order being en¬ 
tered in 1925. The company had claimed that 
its property was worth from thirty to fifty mil¬ 
lion dollars more. If the company had won, the 
people of Chicago would have been compelled 
to pay every year over $2,000,000 additional in 
their gas bills — so that dividends might be earned 
on the inflated “value” of the company’s property. 

In a romantic novel you might read that a 
120 




The Spoils of Normalcy 


roar of public applause reddened the ears of 
the young man who had won a lawsuit saving the 
city over $2,000,000 a year. But in Chicago the 
mayor (whose campaign fund had received 
$100,000 from Insull) and the city lawyer (whose 
law firm received $14,000 a year from Insull) 
issued public statements whenever the gas ques¬ 
tion broke into the newspapers, declaring that 
the gas case had cost the city $400,000 — and 
had produced no results! Even personal friends 
usually restrained any innocent enthusiasm and 
frequently with wise winks they would ask me 
how much longer I expected to stay on the city 
payroll. A political paragrapher wrote, about 
the time I resigned, that I had the long distance 
record for holding a municipal job. Such are the 
realities of public service. 

Since the year 1920 I have been participating 
in the same sort of drama which has been enacted 
on a larger scale in Washington. All the rail¬ 
roads have been united for years in demanding a 
valuation for their properties that would exceed 
by ten to twenty billion dollars the private in¬ 
vestment made in them. According to the law 
transportation rates must be fixed by the Inter¬ 
state Commerce Commission so as to permit the 
121 



Tents of the Mighty 


railroads to earn about six per cent on the <£ value 55 
of their properties. The Commission is required 
to fix the amount of money which represents this 
“value, 55 upon which rates are then to be based. 
If this “valuation 55 is finally computed by the 
Commission to be from ten to twenty billion 
dollars larger than the actual investment made 
by the owners of the railroads in creating the 
present properties, it follows that transportation 
rates under the law must be increased unjustly 
from six hundred million to over one billion 
dollars annually. 

A few loyal public servants have been making 
a long fight against the unfair demands of the 
railroads for an excessive valuation of their prop¬ 
erties which would become the basis for excessive 
charges for public service. This fight has been 
carried on ever since the World War despite a 
disheartening lack of public interest in the strug¬ 
gle and little encouragement from the White 
House whence we have heard constant exhorta¬ 
tions in favor of economy in spending public 
money — to protect public interests! Private 

interests have been seeking to add an annual 
charge to our transportation bill, which in a gen¬ 
eration would equal the money cost of our great- 
122 





The Spoils of Normalcy 


est war. But how many people have known 
enough about this contest even to applaud a 
victory? Not in a single speech or message to 
Congress has the President directed public atten¬ 
tion to the public interest in the “greatest law¬ 
suit in history.” The technique of camouflage 
and propaganda has been working well to mis¬ 
lead the people and to discourage faithful public 
servants. The only large groups of citizens who 
were sufficiently informed and cared enough to 
protest were the railway labor unions. They had 
been aroused by the persistent efforts of one man. 

Out of the new leadership of the war period 
had risen an unusual spokesman for organized 
labor, not a large-fisted son of toil but a lawyer- 
evangelist who preached the “divinity of labor” 
with the religious zeal of an ancient prophet. 
This was Glenn E. Plumb, who had been my 
associate counsel in the Chicago gas litigation 
until he became counsel for the organized railway 
employes. Proselyting with tireless energy for 
labor control in industry, he carried along with 
him for a time the conventions of the American 
Federation of Labor, despite the resistance of 
Samuel Gompers. Aided by the unifying effect 
of federal control of railroads he persuaded the 
123 





Tents of the Mighty 


conservative engine and train service brother¬ 
hoods to join with the other railway unions in 
establishing a national newspaper — “Labor 55 — 
which is today the most effective labor publica¬ 
tion in America. He drafted the “Plumb Plan 55 
for a socialized control of the railroads and ob¬ 
tained its endorsement from many men and or¬ 
ganizations who would ordinarily turn very pale 
at the sight of a red flag! 

It was Plumb who aroused railroad labor to 
see its vital interest in the valuation of the rail¬ 
roads which was being made by the Interstate 
Commerce Commission, under the law which 
Senator LaFollette had forced through Congress 
in 1913. Thus it happened that, as the valuation 
of the Chicago gas company was approaching 
its successful end, I was drawn gradually into 
representation of the organized railway employes, 
particularly in opposition to an excessive valua¬ 
tion of the railroads. Plumb had begun a fight 
before the Commission, and when his other proj¬ 
ects absorbed all his time he persuaded the labor 
organizations to engage me to carry on the val¬ 
uation contest. 

The same railroad presidents who were seek¬ 
ing to double the profits of railroad owners by 
124 





The Spoils of Normalcy 


inflating the official value of railroad properties, 
were at the same time working to reduce the 
wages of the employes. They had induced Con¬ 
gress to establish the Railroad Labor Board to 
handle wage questions. By the grace of President 
Harding they were able to get a board eventually 
pliant enough to approve of their arguments 
and statistics. This Board reduced wages over 
$300,000,000 a year in one order issued in 1921. 
The employes growled but suffered the loss, the 
greatest wage cut in all history which was 
accepted peaceably, as the president of the Balti¬ 
more & Ohio subsequently told a Senate com¬ 
mittee. 

Yet inside a year, this Board (being afraid to 
reduce the higher paid groups of train service 
men, who would have struck in a body and par¬ 
alyzed commerce) proceeded to cut again the 
wages of all other lower paid employes to about 
the same extent as before. The railroad shop¬ 
men, 400,000 strong, went on strike. They should 
have received the support of every man who 
worked for a living; but the propagandists beat 
them. So arrogant were the “belly-best minds 55 
that when President Harding, after a month’s 
strike, brought authorized committees of mana- 

125 




Tents of the Mighty 


gers and employes into an agreement to settle the 
controversy, the railroad executives repudiated 
their agreement with the President and publicly 



flouted his spokesman, Secretary Hoover. After 
thirty days of private negotiations, another settle¬ 
ment was arranged with a strong group of roads. 
Then, with peace in sight, the Attorney General, 
126 










The Spoils of Normalcy 


the odorous Daugherty, actually brought an 
injunction suit against the labor unions — a suit, 
not to stop the strike, but to destroy the power 
of the labor leaders who were on their way to 
sign a settlement of the strike when the injunction 
was issued! 

During this bitter period I was chief counsel 
for the striking shopmen. For days following the 
Daugherty injunction, I had to act without com¬ 
municating with my clients, in order that they 
would be able to sign the strike settlement papers 
before the government officers could interfere 
with them and prevent a settlement. I partici¬ 
pated in every major move in this struggle; saw 
the persistent untiring efforts of the labor leaders 
to preserve peace, to check violence, to bring 
about a settlement. The terms of the Harding 
settlement of August first were carefully stated, 
the written words confirmed in my presence by 
those who spoke for the government and for 
labor. Yet the responsible operators of the most 
essential business of the country chose to break 
their word and to give the lie to the President 
rather than to make terms with labor organiza¬ 
tions which they were determined to crush. 
(Strange to say I accepted the pledged good faith 
127 






Tents of the Mighty 


of these same men a few years later — as I shall 
tell — only to learn again that many men, honor¬ 
able in all other ways, cannot be trusted to keep 
faith with organized labor. The excuse is ob¬ 
vious: How can men make great fortunes out of 
the labors of other men without deceiving them?) 

It is a simple fact that the part played by the 
government in the shopmen’s strike (with the ex¬ 
ception of Secretary Hoover’s efforts) was from 
start to finish partisan and contemptible. It 
would require a volume to tell the whole story. 
But the oil scandals, the Daugherty investigation 
and “The President’s Daughter” supply a suffi¬ 
cient explanation of the ignoble subservience of 
the administration. 

Throughout the shopmen’s strike I found re¬ 
peated the tactics of the Chicago gas fight. Hun¬ 
dreds of private detectives were turned loose to 
spy, to provoke violence, to manufacture affi¬ 
davits, to fill the newspapers with poisonous lies. 
The fictions about “trains abandoned in the des¬ 
ert” were reprinted in newspapers and magazines 
long after this falsehood had been exposed under 
oath in the government injunction suit. I re¬ 
member one dreadful photograph of a man 
“tarred and feathered,” which was introduced in 
128 





The Spoils of Normalcy 


evidence in that case and discredited as a pal¬ 
pable fraud. The ‘Victim 5 ’ had been taken on a 
long train journey to be photographed before his 
“sufferings 55 were relieved. Then there was an 
elaborate, malicious story printed concerning the 
trip of a labor chief to confer with a railroad 
president, in which the labor leader was described 
as traveling in the president’s “well-stocked” 
private car. It happened that I had accom¬ 
panied this labor man to his train on that date 
and had examined and delivered to him his ticket 
and his upper berth reservation in a regular Pull¬ 
man car! Hundreds of workers still believe that 
this man betrayed them for a small fortune — 
but I have known the exact state of his thin 
bank account for years! 

Perhaps I have lingered too long over the 
shopmen’s strike. But I believe the historian of 
later generations will find uncovered in the true 
narrative of its causes, its conduct and the forces 
thus revealed, evidences of a profound conflict 
which will and must continue until the domi¬ 
nance of either the philosophy of mastery or serv¬ 
ice brings about a transformation of our present 
society and government, as radical as the evolu¬ 
tion of democracy out of feudalism. 

129 




Tents of the Mighty 


Following the shopmen’s strike the railway 
unions energetically developed a new program 
for the settlement of labor disputes in their in¬ 
dustry. Previously, however, Glenn E. Plumb 
(their general counsel) had been undermining his 
apparently robust constitution with his exhaust¬ 
ing labors in behalf of the famous “Plumb Plan.” 
There comes to mind the careless jest of one of 
our golfing companions one day when Plumb had 
swung his powerful shoulders into a terrific drive: 
“Really, Glenn, a man as strong as you are ought 
to go to work!” I never knew a man who worked 
harder — or played more joyously. His un¬ 
timely death in the summer of 1922 brought about 
an extension of my work to cover a general rep¬ 
resentation of the railway labor organizations in 
matters of their common interest. Particularly 
this involved a three-year campaign to repeal the 
law which established the Railroad Labor Board 
and to enact the present Railway Labor Act. 
Thereby I became more a resident of Washington 
than of Chicago for some years beginning with 
1923, and a busy worker behind the scenes in the 
various investigations that exposed the utter rot¬ 
tenness of the Harding administration. It was 
an entertaining, but saddening experience to rea- 
130 





The Spoils of Normalcy 


lize that the most powerful forces to shape public 
opinion, the political leadership of both parties, 
the financial and industrial leadership, the larger 
news collectors and distributors, were exerting 
their united power to mislead and to confuse 
popular thinking. True it was that facts were 
printed when brought out in public hearings 
after bitter and unscrupulous obstruction. But 
how the significant details were blurred! How 
the obvious conclusions either were not explained, 
or were misinterpreted for puzzleheaded, slow- 
minded readers accustomed to get ideas out of 
headlines and slang phrases! 

In the early stages of the Teapot Dome reve¬ 
lations, later in the Daugherty investigation and 
finally in the Continental Trading Company ex¬ 
posures, there were inviting fields for journalistic 
enterprise — opportunities for the great news¬ 
gathering agencies to piece together obvious clues, 
to supply the missing links and to tell the people 
how the complicated machinery of political cor¬ 
ruption and commercial dishonesty had been or¬ 
ganized and operated to squeeze private fortunes 
out of public business and to absorb the common 
wealth. 

But the trails ran too high to be followed 

131 





Tents of the Mighty 


to the end. The highest officers of government, 
the most powerful politicians, the richest of 
the money-makers, were involved. If the peo¬ 
ple really under¬ 
stood how badly 
they were ruled, 
how lawless and 
dishonest were the 
“great men” whose 
guidance they were 
expected reverent¬ 
ly to follow, some 
revolutionary up¬ 
heaval might take 
place! It was even 
possible that a new 
party might be 
born and all the la¬ 
bor of decades spent 
in thoroughly cor¬ 
rupting and insuring control of both old parties 
might be made worthless! 

Indeed, here was Senator LaFollette, des¬ 
perately conserving his waning strength, nursing 
his weakened lungs, trying — oh, so hard! —to 
get himself in shape for “one last battle.” He 
132 



He wanted to believe that the people 
would respond to a “clarion call ” 








The Spoils of Normalcy 


wanted to believe that the time had come when 
the people would respond to a “clarion call 55 to 
choose new leaders. He knew that if he were to 
organize the revolt it must be now or never. The 
shadows were lengthening and the end of his 
day was drawing near. 

He appealed to me — as I am sure he did to 
many other younger men — to give the utmost 
of time and energy. He did not offer hopes of 
quick victories, but the prospect of glorious de¬ 
feats. One day he met me all glowing with a 
program he had worked out to give me a “great 
opportunity.” Certain groups were organized 
and ready. Reasonable campaign funds were 
assured. All I had to do was to agree to become 
a candidate for the United States Senate from 
Illinois. Of course, I could not win, but we would 
organize the progressive voters of Illinois in this 
fight and in the fall of 1924 we would have a 
strong organization to swing into the presidential 
campaign. In some far distant day we would 
win the state! 

North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wis¬ 
consin, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan were good 
battle grounds. The progressives could reason¬ 
ably expect in time to win a great block in the 
*33 




Tents of the Mighty 


middle west. Illinois was the key to this happy 
future. We must begin the work now — and I 
was the logical first sacrifice. I had an idea 
about how Iphigenia must have felt when Aga¬ 
memnon said: “Come with me, dear child! 55 
Only, from my experience in Illinois politics, I 
suspected that no Diana would rescue me from 
the altar. 

It would have been impossible to resist La- 
Follette’s program if I had had only my own 
feelings to consider. By this time I understood 
too well the exceptional nature and value of his 
public services. Here was a man who had really 
given his whole life to the service of the people. 
“It is a bitter, discouraging struggle — many de¬ 
feats for a few victories — but it brings inner sat¬ 
isfactions that are lasting and repay for all the 
pain. 55 Thus he argued with me. And I knew 
that I would rather feel the happiness that shone 
in his eyes at the end of life than have all the 
vanities and comforts that might be obtained from 
other forms of “success. 55 But I knew that I was 
not the “man of the hour. 55 It was due to him 
that I should explain why. So I told him of 
private embarrassments (that need not be written 
here) which destroyed my apparent availability 
134 



The Spoils of Normalcy 


as a candidate — and convinced him, I hope, 
that it was not lack of zeal or purely selfish con¬ 
siderations that disqualified me. 

When the decision was finally reached to 
launch an independent presidential campaign, 
Senator LaFollette called me to Washington to 
help lay down the lines of the campaign. At his 
request I wrote a “keynote speech 55 to put my 
ideas in concrete form. It was quite a different 
production from the progressive “keynote 55 I had 
written eight years before. It was quite differ¬ 
ent from any speech that LaFollette would have 
delivered. Yet he received it with enthusiasm 
and for some days I hoped that the campaign 
might be based on issues that to my mind ran 
deeper than the old attacks upon “big business 55 
and demands to rescue the people from the rule 
of monopoly and the “money power. 55 

But in final judgment the veteran warrior 
turned again to the veteran issues — and decided 
to march his legions out to familiar shell-torn 
battlefield. As I read his speech with “young 
Bob, 55 on the train going to Cleveland, I felt as 
though the campaign song had been selected in 
that good old tune: “Tenting tonight on the 
old camp ground. 55 In these words he had 
135 




Tents of the Mighty 


written the refrain: “To break the combined 
power of the private monopoly system over the 
political and economic life of the American people 
is the one paramount issue of the 1924 campaign.” 
With due humility I was willing to concede that 
Robert M. LaFollette knew much more about 
politics and the American people than I would 
ever know — and that perhaps the issues which I 
thought were bloodless and unreal seemed vital 
— perhaps were vital — to the voters. Anyhow, 
the plan adopted was that I was to make my own 
speech to the convention. “Young Bob” would 
read his father’s speech. In this way, I might 
have a chance to learn from the delegates at 
least how vital or how unreal my issues seemed 
to them. 

But the convention leaders had been making 
their plans also; and on arrival the morning 
paper informed me that I had been named as 
chairman of the committee on resolutions. That 
was a full-sized job for one man — and there 
would be no time or occasion for any additional 
speech making. Wise prophets in Washington 
had predicted that with “all the cranks in Amer¬ 
ica” joining in the Cleveland convention, the 
writing of a platform that would not tear the 
136 





The Spoils of Normalcy 


infant party limb from limb in the hour of its 
birth would be a practical impossibility. Indeed 
when I faced the crowd of intense faces in the 
committee room and glanced at the huge piles of 
resolutions that lay upon the table, I was appalled 
at the task of reconciling the opinions of that 
polyglot convention in a document of reasonable 
length or consistency. 

Somehow the well-mixed, sensible committee 
did the job and the shortest platform ever adopted 
by a similar convention was reported on time and 
approved without debate. Perhaps I may be 
allowed a quiet smile as I quote a few phrases 
out of several which were clipped from my still¬ 
born draft of a keynote speech and written into 
the platform that was unanimously adopted: 

“Under the principle of ruthless individual¬ 
ism and competition, that government is deemed 
best which offers to the few the greatest chance 
of individual gain. 

“Under the progressive principle of coopera¬ 
tion, that government is deemed best which offers 
to the many the highest level of average happiness 
and well-being. 

“It is our faith that class gains are temporary 
137 




Tents of the Mighty 


delusions and that eternal laws of compensation 
make every man his brother’s keeper. 

“In that faith we present our program of 
public service. 

“The nation may grow rich in the vision of 
greed. The nation will grow great in the vision 
of service.” 

Having served as an official expounder of the 
progressivism of 1912, 1916 and 1924, I venture 
the observation that throughout this period the 
progressive forces in American political life had 
only the vaguest idea of where they were going. 
With a more successful leadership they would 
have been greatly shocked to find themselves 
marching into their mist-hidden promised land. 
Not one man in a thousand who shouted for 
“social justice” in 1912, or for the “vision of 
service” in 1924 was prepared to limit himself to a 
socially just reward or to accept the obligations of 
service. And those wage-earners who were accept¬ 
ing less than “social justice” and who were invol¬ 
untarily serving their fellow men—those for whom 
progressivism should mean a better daily life, in¬ 
stead of merely a mental satisfaction—they mostly 
voted the republican and democratic tickets. 

138 


/ 




V 

THE JUDICIAL BARRICADES 



THE BATTLE OF O’FALLON 
















V 

THE JUDICIAL BARRICADES 

It was a strangely assorted crowd that filled 
the council chamber in the city hall of Chicago 
on May 23, 1923. Here was Senator LaFollette 
with his hand on the shoulder of William Jennings 
Bryan. Over there Carl Vroman, assistant sec¬ 
retary of agriculture under Wilson, was chatting 
with William Kent, former congressman and 
tariff commissioner, who gave Muir Woods to 
the nation, and who, long years before as a Chi¬ 
cago alderman, had battled the “gray wolves 55 
of the old city council room. Near at hand the 
tall, rather solemn Senator Shipstead exchanged 
greetings with Warren S. Stone, Grand Chief of 
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Over 
by the rostrum, Mayor Dever of Chicago was 
welcoming Mayor Hylan of New York. A “non¬ 
partisan movement 55 to protect the public interest 
in railroad valuation was being organized. 

A friendly reporter drew me to one side and 
whispered: “There is a move on foot to bust up 
this meeting. A ‘business men’s committee 5 is 
141 


Tents of the Mighty 


going to start a row from the floor. Also looks 
as though there would be a gang of hoodlums in 
the balcony. There’s a queer bunch hanging 
around the hall outside. The mayor’s been 
tipped off and there’s a special police guard ready 
for any rough stuff.” 

“What are these gentlemanly ‘business men’ 
going to do?” I asked. “How do they get in? 
They weren’t invited to sit in this conference.” 

“Oh, it’s a public gathering; so they’re just 
going to butt in and throw mud at LaFollette. 
They issued an advance story about the riot they 
expect to pull off. Here’s the stuff, if you want 
to read it.” 

Thus it came about that the first session of the 
“National Conference on Valuation of American 
Railroads” was a rather exciting affair. Early 
in the spring, Senator LaFollette had called a 
preliminary meeting in Washington at which 
Warren Stone had introduced me to the Senator, 
with his usual bluntness. 

“We have had a lot of experience with law¬ 
yers,” he said, “and here is one we think we can 
trust.” 

LaFollette’s face lighted with that winning 
smile that made even opponents love the man, 
142 




The Judicial Barricades 


as he replied: “Oh, I’m so glad you are here; 
because I have been told by so many I consulted 
that you are the man who ought to do this job.” 
Remembering all the unkind things I had thought 
(and, alas! had sometimes said) about this man, 
when we were battling, without his aid, “at 
Armageddon,” and later when we were vocifer¬ 
ously saving the world, despite his questionings — 
I felt as though a rather large scuttle of coals of 
fire had been emptied on my head. 

Later I learned that close friends of Wilson 
had chiefly recommended me for the honor of 
slinging stones against the Philistines. So if any 
one is curious to trace with biblical care the ori¬ 
gins of the eventual battle of O’Fallon (which I 
shall describe), and to learn who had led the 
hosts that were encamped (and mostly sleeping 
throughout the fight) in the valley of Elah, he 
will find that the tents of LaFollette, Bryan, Wil¬ 
son and Roosevelt were pitched along the lines 
of march to the battlefield. They were all moving 
in the same direction, although along diverse 
and winding roads. 

The Chicago conference was finally called by 
the entire progressive group of senators and 
representatives in Congress, cooperating with a 
143 





Tents of the Mighty 


group of governors. They brought together the 
railway unions and other labor organizations, 
big shippers, commercial travelers 5 associations, 
farm organizations, mayors of large cities and 
many public-spirited men, including conspicuous 
associates of both Roosevelt and Wilson. 

After an address of welcome by Mayor Dever, 
Senator LaFollette proceeded to state the pur¬ 
pose of the meeting, which, however, will be 
better understood if a little history is first re¬ 
viewed. 

In 1905, LaFollette, the republican governor 
of Wisconsin, was fighting for a state commission 
to regulate railroad rates on the basis of a valua¬ 
tion of railroad properties. He called to his aid 
Colonel Bryan, the first apostle of “peace without 
victory 55 in the democratic party. The peerless 
leader addressed both houses of the legislature 
in joint session with such unusual effect that the 
commission bill was passed unanimously. 

A year later in Washington Senator LaFollette 
found himself unable to persuade either President 
Roosevelt, or a majority of the United States 
Senate, that railroad rates should be fixed by the 
Interstate Commerce Commission likewise on 
the basis of the value of the property used. In 
144 





The Judicial Barricades 


those days progressives came frequently to praise 
the “Wisconsin idea”—and to bury it at the 
same time. It was during his speech upon rail¬ 
road regulation, when republican senators left 
the chamber as a silent rebuke to a new and 
radical member, that Senator LaFollette made 
his famous prophecy that “unless this important 
subject is rightly settled, seats temporarily vacant 
may be permanently vacated by those who have 
the right to occupy them now!” And the un¬ 
tamable LaFollette introduced railway valuation 
bills in every succeeding session of Congress until, 
after President Taft had expressed approval in his 
annual message of 1910, LaFollette’s bill finally 
became a law on March 1, 1913 —just before the 
inauguration of President Wilson. 

The progressive purpose in “valuing” the rail¬ 
roads was primarily to find their original cost, 
that is, the amount of private investment which 
had been honestly made in them. This “invest¬ 
ment value” would then be used as the basis for 
fixing transportation rates, so that the owners of 
the railroads would be limited to a reasonable 
profit on their investments. Unhappily it had 
developed by the year 1923, that the blessed tool 
of railroad valuation was being adapted to base 
145 




Tents of the Mighty 


uses. The Interstate Commerce Commission had 
been reporting, in practically every “tentative 
valuation 55 issued, that it was “unable to ascertain 
the original cost 55 of the property, although this 
was the principal object of its investigation. But 
the Commission at the same time had been report¬ 
ing “estimates 55 of a so-called “reproduction 
cost 55 upon which railroad lawyers were basing 
claims of “value 55 exceeding the bulliest dreams 
of railroad owners before the war. 

When the Valuation Act was being considered 
in 1913, railroad witnesses had estimated the 
value of all the roads at about $14,000,000,000. 
Ten years later, although the roads were officially 
reporting that their investment had increased less 
than five billion dollars, their claims of “value 55 
had increased over twenty billions! Thus, accord¬ 
ing to the Wall Street Journal of May 26, 1923, 
it was “roughly estimated that the railroads 
would value around $35,000,000,000 in 1923 55 ! 

Naturally the sponsors of the Valuation Act 
viewed with more than customary alarm the 
prospect that another lawful child of government 
by the people was being educated to pick the 
pockets of his parents. Even as late as the year 
1920, Senator LaFollette had heard the railroad 
146 




The Judicial Barricades 


operators ask Congress to pass a law which would 
have fixed the total“value” of the roads at about 
$20,000,000,000. Yet in 1923, when the prices 
of everything had gone down, these railroad man¬ 
agers were claiming a “value” $15,000,000,000 
higher than they were willing to accept in 1920. 
If the Interstate Commerce Commission should 
approve of such a U value” and authorize the 
railroads to earn six per cent on this additional 
fifteen billions, the result would be an increase in 
freight rates amounting to $900,000,000 a year. 
And twelve million poor but loud farmers were 
demanding lower rates! This ominous situation 
Senator LaFollette invited the conference to con¬ 
sider. 

Then up rose the spokesman for the uninvited 
“business men’s committee,” whose high-brow 
pretensions were strangely supported by a low¬ 
brow gathering outside the gallery. This spokes¬ 
man happened to be a man who had close business 
relations with all the western railroads. He an¬ 
nounced that he had a few questions to ask the 
Senator and he unfolded a lengthy statement full 
of impertinent inquiries and insinuations, in¬ 
tended to cast ridicule on LaFollette’s long strug¬ 
gle for an honest valuation of railroad property. 
147 






Tents of the Mighty 


Copies of this elaborate propaganda had been 
issued in advance to the newspapers, in order to 
muddy public opinion as much as possible. And 
the press generally found this “advance story” 
a useful substitute for the actual news. The early 
edition of one Chicago newspaper, printed before 
the conference assembled, contained a sensational 
and wholly imaginative story of the uproar and 
confusion created by the intervention of these 
self-appointed members of the conference! As a 
matter of fact, since we were forewarned, Senator 
LaFollette courteously permitted the railroad 
agent to present his mimeographed insult, but 
firmly declined to permit him to read it out loud. 
The galleries, having been kept really “respecta¬ 
ble” by the police, there was no support available 
for blackguardism on the floor, so the much 
touted “blow-up” of the meeting was just a 
“dud.” But it may be observed that the tactics 
of the “conservative leaders” of business are not 
always distinguishable from those of political 
hoodlums! 

Another amusing incident of this public ses¬ 
sion came in the speech of Bryan, who advised a 
firm defense of public interests but also spoke for 
the wisdom of compromising when the enemy 
148 




The Judicial Barricades 


was well entrenched! His central thought was 
expressed in the trite phrase, “half a loaf is 
better than no bread,” which aroused LaFollette 
to vigorous protest. In his autobiography (pub¬ 
lished in 1912), he had explained the necessity 
he had met throughout his battles in Wisconsin 
of constantly opposing this very argument from 
well-meaning friends or clever opponents. Later 
on when he was urging this same matter of rail¬ 
road valuation upon President Roosevelt he re¬ 
ported that, because Roosevelt “acted upon the 
maxim that half a loaf is better than no bread,” 
he had found it impossible to cooperate with him. 
And now his old friend Bryan (mellowed by age 
and success) was commending that seductive half 
loaf that LaFollette had always said “dulls the 
appetite and destroys the keenness of interest in 
attaining the full loaf.” No wonder the old 
warrior was moved to reply! 

He assured Mr. Bryan of his appreciation of 
his long public services (particularly his support 
of LaFollette in his early battles in Wisconsin to 
which I have referred); but he vehemently as¬ 
serted that all the gains made and held for popu¬ 
lar government in Wisconsin had been won by 
refusing to compromise upon principles or meas- 
149 






Tents of the Mighty 


ures essential to the public welfare. They had 
learned too often, he cried, that half victories 
paved the way to final defeat and that temporary 
defeats, suffered while refusing to compromise, 
were the necessary groundwork for ultimate and 
lasting victories. 

That evening a little group sat down to dinner 
at the invitation of former Senator Owen. Think¬ 
ing of the clash in the morning I compared the 
bland, assured face of Bryan, rich in honors and 
not poor in worldly goods, with the lined and 
anxious face of c Tattle Bob,” and wondered 
which man would have left the greater impress 
on his time when a hundred years had rolled by. 
Curiously enough, for all his uncompromising 
zeal, LaFollette was the more tolerant man. His 
deep and tender affection, not only for his friends, 
but for all mankind, his ready sympathy with the 
unfortunate and oppressed, kept his mind open. 
There were no narrow rooms within it, wherein 
were housed the intolerance and social prejudice 
that Bryan so frequently revealed. The distinc¬ 
tion was clear. Where Bryan was sure, he would 
not yield. He believed in his Bible — “from cover 
to cover.” Alcohol was evil. He would not 
yield to Satan or the Demon Rum. On economic 
150 






The Judicial Barricades 


issues he was not sure. He advocated compro¬ 
mise. 

Concerning social and religious issues, La- 
Follette was not so sure. He recognized mental 
life as an experiment. But material existence 
was more nearly fixed. Economic inequalities 
and hardships were real—subject, he felt, to 
relief by law. He had definite rules for economic 
justice and for political action to enforce the rules. 
Here he was uncompromising. 

My mind traveled back twenty-three years to 
a hotel room just across the street where I had 
first met Bryan, clad democratically in trousers 
and undershirt, waiting while his wife repaired 
the “boiled shirt” necessary for a platform ap¬ 
pearance. He greeted affably the two young 
men who were to escort him to the university. 
At the start of the long drive (in a horse-drawn 
cab) he asked if we wanted a non-political speech. 
On the contrary, we assured him, we had asked 
both candidates for the presidency to make politi¬ 
cal speeches. He settled back comfortably and 
talked of many things. Four years before I had 
heard him make the crown-of-thorns-cross-of- 
gold speech in the old Coliseum. But I did not 
tell him that my father, who was deep in demo- 
I 5 I 






Tents of the Mighty 


cratic politics, had detailed to me how George M. 
Pullman and the silver mine owners had been 
gathering delegates for him long before the care¬ 
fully planned speech “swept the delegates off 
their (delicately balanced) feet/ 5 Nor did I tell 
him that my father had vowed he would never 
vote for Bryan — which he never did. 

I had not been impressed by the undershirt, 
but the plain sincerity of the man and the most 
persuasive oratory I had ever heard — possibly 
excepting Ingersoll — did impress me. Twenty- 
three years later he was less impressive, weary 
and disillusioned, with a cold light in the eyes that 
had flamed with the hopes of youth in 1900. All 
men do not grow old that way. I could not warm 
to Clarence Darrow in days when Bryan could 
make the pulses leap. But at Darrow’s seventieth 
birthday dinner, I paid my tribute to the man 
who, though poking fun at my religious ideals, 
could become a more mellow and tolerant friend 
with each passing year. In fact I described 
Darrow as "a defender of the faith — a great 
defender of an old and universal faith that, if 
you know the truth, the truth shall make you 
free. 55 That description would hardly have ap¬ 
plied to Bryan, after Dayton, Tennessee. 

152 



The Judicial Barricades 


Following the first public meeting of the valua¬ 
tion conference, which I have described, executive 
sessions were held where the members could de¬ 
liberate free from the uninvited advice of railroad 
propagandists. Here a permanent organization 
was effected and a program was adopted to pro¬ 
vide for an aggressive representation of the public 
interest in a valuation of the railroads on the basis 
of investment, before the Interstate Commerce 
Commission and in the courts. I was engaged 
as general counsel to carry on this work in cooper¬ 
ation with such attorneys general of various 
states and other public representatives as would 
assist. In response to our petition the Commission 
soon after granted the National Conference on 
Valuation all the rights of a party to the valuation 
proceedings. 

Within six years, largely as a result of this 
combination of progressive forces, one of the 
many “supreme issues 55 of progressivism had been 
carried from the White House and the halls of 
Congress into the Supreme Court of the United 
States. And thus beyond the lives of Roosevelt, 
Wilson, LaFollette and Bryan, their dissonant 
campaigns for “economic justice 55 coalesced in 
producing the “greatest lawsuit in history 55 — 
153 





Tents of the Mighty 


which was presented to the Supreme Court as 
“the O’Fallon case, 55 in January, 1929. 

In the final arguments of this case I was 
officially described as a “friend of the court, 55 or 
with newspaper informality as “attorney for the 
people. 55 And if the background of the contest 
has been adequately painted in, it may be under¬ 
stood why the railroads vigorously sought to 
prevent my participation in this legal battle; 
and why the United States Senate for the first 
time in history passed a resolution (by a vote of 
46 to 31) requesting the Supreme Court to hear 
one particular lawyer in behalf of the public in¬ 
terest (although the Attorney General and the 
counsel for the Interstate Commerce Commission 
were already in the case); and why the court gra¬ 
ciously gave me a hearing. 

Against an appropriate background the O’Fal¬ 
lon case stands out clearly as a resurgence of that 
progressivism that for twenty years had swayed 
the executive and legislative departments of the 
government, that had even leveled some judicial 
barricades — and then apparently disintegrated 
under the post-war onslaught of materialism. 
The vitality of ideals repressed, distorted, battered 
and betrayed, might well surprise and annoy 
154 





The Judicial Barricades 


the Philistines. Strange indeed that the mere 
remnants of a defeated host could gather a little 
company of lieutenants and sergeants and privates 
to go marching on under old tattered flags, after 
the old generals all had died, and the new gen¬ 
erals all had enlisted under the new golden eagles. 
Strange indeed that the valuation conference of 
1923 had survived to raise its banner in 1929; 
because in a decade of valuation tournaments 
the once numerous, well-armored champions of 
the public had been unhorsed one by one. 

Yet there was sore need for every effort that 
could be put forth month by month and year 
by year to counteract the never-ceasing pressure 
of private interests to sway public officials against 
the public interest. After the first arguments 
made in behalf of the Conference before the In¬ 
terstate Commerce Commission, in 1923, I was 
informed that this was the first presentation of 
the general valuation problem which five out of 
eleven members of the Commission had ever 
heard! Earlier extensive hearings upon the 
underlying issues had been held before these five 
men had been appointed. The effect of a reargu¬ 
ment of the fundamental questions was most 
surprising to all concerned. In the ensuing three 
*55 




Tents of the Mighty 


years there was a struggle within and outside the 
Commission which no one can ever chronicle, 
but which ought to be written down as an epic 
of the never-ending war between those who serve 
and those who exploit the common need. 

Finally in 1926 came the O’Fallon case, in 
which, by the narrow margin of one vote, the 
Interstate Commerce Commission made a de¬ 
cisive ruling in favor of the public interest, holding 
that the value of railroad property for rate-mak¬ 
ing purposes “approaches more nearly the rea¬ 
sonable and necessary investment in the property 
than the cost of reproducing it at a particular 
time.” But the Commission’s own lawyers were 
officially silent. The lawyers for the railroads 
were all protesting. The lawyers for the state 
commissions were refusing to approve. As coun¬ 
sel for the National Conference on Valuation, I 
found myself representing the only party to the 
“greatest lawsuit in history” who was supporting 
this public tribunal in its judgment that the pub¬ 
lic should not be compelled to pay interest on 
more than ten billion dollars for no value re¬ 
ceived! 

Shippers would pay higher freight rates if 
railroad valuations were increased. But the 
156 




The Judicial Barricades 


chambers of commerce and trade associations 
sent no lawyers to plead for them. Farmers were 
mailing petitions asking Congress, or the Inter- 



Farmers were mailing petitions asking some sovereign 
power to reduce their freight rates 


state Commerce Commission, or the President, or 
Ford or Morgan or Rockefeller, or some other 
sovereign power, to reduce freight rates. But the 
“farm organizations” sent no lawyers to plead 
for them. State governments were maintaining 
157 





Tents of the Mighty 


law departments and commissions, ostensibly to 
protect public interests. Cities were employing 
“special counsel 55 to prevent larger bills for gas, 
telephone, electric and traction service. But the 
states and cities sent no lawyers to plead against 
increasing the six billion dollar annual bill paid 
for railroad service. Yet at times during the 
preceding decade lawyers had been sent by all 
these groups to oppose rate increases. Why were 
they all voiceless in this critical hour? 

There were two principal reasons. In the 
first place, for many years the railroads had been 
cleverly developing a “cooperative program 55 
with shippers, diligently persuading them that 
all freight charges could be passed on to the 
“ultimate consumer 55 ; and that therefore “good 
service 55 was more important to big shippers than 
cheap rates. All those who “cooperated, 55 by 
not opposing the railroads in their efforts to 
increase earnings, would get “good service. 55 If 
they didn’t “cooperate, 55 how could they expect 
“good service 55 ? This argument was most per¬ 
suasive. 

Similar “cooperative relations, 55 based on other 
persuasive reasons, had been established with 
the principal farm organizations; so that when 
158 





The Judicial Barricades 


death removed the militant Clifford Thorne from 
the valuation proceedings no one was sent to 
speak for the overburdened shippers and farmers 
whom he had long represented. 

And during these years the closely organized, 
prosperous public utilities, knowing that the 
amount of their profits depended largely on po¬ 
litical control, had been steadily weeding out of 
state and local governments the c ‘radicals” and 
“demagogues” and “progressives” who opposed 
them. The political corruption which I had 
watched at close hand in Illinois had been oper¬ 
ating efficiently throughout the country in the 
reign of normalcy. Experiences related to me 
by friends and allies in Maine, New York, Penn¬ 
sylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Cali¬ 
fornia, Washington — indeed everywhere — evi¬ 
denced the same relentless campaign to drive out 
of public office any man who did not accept the 
doctrine that those who pay for political cam¬ 
paigns have made investments in public officials, 
which must pay good dividends. This doctrine 
provides the solid, “business-like” foundation of 
party government which insures minority control 
and preserves us from the dangers of government 
by majority rule. 


159 





Tents of the Mighty 


The second potent reason for the absence of 
public support of the Interstate Commerce Com¬ 
mission came from the increasing interference of 
the courts with exercise of judgment by other 
public officers. Much higher judicial barricades 
to political progress had been constructed since 
the World War began. It is a curious fact that 
judicial obstructionists are usually the last and 
the least criticized of public officials. Yet from 
the founding of the republic every man who has 
led the procession of American life has found it 
necessary to smash his way through judicial 
barriers reared to preserve the powers that be 
against the powers that must be. This applies 
to all forms of leadership, including scientists 
and business men. But the obstacles to political 
advance can be most easily reviewed. 

In the cradle days of the nation it was Thomas 
Jefferson who said repeatedly that “the germ of 
dissolution in our Federal Government is the 
judiciary. 5 ’ He proclaimed that “a judiciary in¬ 
dependent of the will of the nation” was out of 
place in a republican government. It followed 
naturally that, in order to block this “radical,” 
the defeated Federalists created and packed the 
federal judiciary just before his inauguration. 

160 




The Judicial Barricades 


After which the Jeffersonians, with not unright¬ 
eous wrath, repealed the law and removed all 
the “midnight judges” they could reach. 

In the next generation the democracy of An¬ 
drew Jackson stormed into actual control of 
government through judicial fortifications reared 
by Chief Justice Marshall; and, after President 
Jackson had transformed the bench, a vast body 
of laws which could not be enforced under the 
rule of John Marshall became the law under Jack¬ 
sonian judges. 

In one more generation we find the Jacksonian 
Chief Justice Taney writing the Dred Scott opin¬ 
ion, which denied the power of Congress to abol¬ 
ish slavery in the territories. Then Abraham 
Lincoln denounced both the decision and the 
court and, having been elected President upon a 
platform repudiating the “political heresy” of 
the Supreme Court, he rejected its wisdom, even 
disregarded its commands, and did what he could 
to reform its character. 

Still another generation of “radicals” rose to 
affright the Brahmins, and in 1894 the “populis¬ 
tic” democracy passed an income tax law. But 
this “communistic march” against property (as 
described by the opposition) was halted by a five 
161 





Tents of the Mighty 


to four decision of the Supreme Court, whose 
majority revealed their emotions in prophesying 
that “the present assault upon capital is but the 
beginning.” 

So the sovereign people of the United States 
had to wait for nineteen years until the progressive 
movement could produce an amendment to the 
Constitution which would allow them to tax their 
incomes. It required a “communistic march” 
of the people through three-fourths of the states, 
led by Roosevelt, Wilson, LaFollette and Bryan 
(and by Taft!) to overcome the resistance of one 
judge at the Supreme judicial barricade. And if 
these “communists” had not broken through the 
barricade, how would the United States have 
been able to finance its expenditures in the World 
War? 

In the light of this history, it is not surprising 
that the progressives of my generation have been 
accused of “assaults upon the judiciary.” It 
would be difficult to conceive of a real advance 
toward “social justice” in the United States that 
has not left, or would not leave, a vast wreckage 
of judge-made law in its pathway. The political 
revolutions of Jefferson and Jackson, the civil 
war of Lincoln, the recent progressive struggles 
162 





The Judicial Barricades 


to amend the Constitution, all testify to the terrible 
price we must pay to achieve self-government 
against the opposition of well-provisioned minor¬ 
ities entrenched behind judicial barricades. 

Yet something of this price must be paid for 
domestic peace and prosperity. We are told that 
the men and institutions that conserve power and 
wealth are bulwarks against anarchy and reckless 
social experiment. Of course, poor men are not 
all anarchists or reckless experimenters. They 
are more likely to be timid folk. But they are 
inclined to want a change; and not every change 
is good. Not every rebellion is a birth pang of 
evolution. 

In a copy of his “American Ideals,” which 
Roosevelt once sent me, he scribbled some lines 
suggesting that certain of the twenty-year-old 
essays “make pretty good doctrine in essence 
now.” To carry on some of this good doctrine 
to another generation, I would like to refer to the 
chapter on “The Law of Civilization and De¬ 
cay,” where Roosevelt expresses agreement with 
Brooks Adams that “the progress of civilization 
and centralization has depended largely upon the 
growing mastery of the attack over the defence.” 
Any one can see that the conservative fortifica- 
163 





Tents of the Mighty 


tions must be carried by assault whenever it is 
time to establish a new leadership in the tents of 
the mighty. It should be equally obvious that 
judicial barriers cannot be left standing across 
the road that leads up, however much we may 
respect their former usefulness, or the courage 
or loyalty of the old guard that will not surrender 
them. And so, as these fortresses have been rising 
higher and higher, progressives have had cause to 
fear that the powers of defense might be growing 
too great for the powers of attack and that behind 
such Chinese walls a ruling class no longer worthy 
might unhappily survive. 

It was the growing strength of this judicial 
defense that really defeated the progressive attack 
of my generation and stirred its leaders in 1912 to 
talk about the recall of judges and the c ‘recall of 
decisions.” “Twin devils of anarchy!” shouted 
the opposition. We were solemnly told that the 
reversal of a judge-made rule of public policy 
by the people would be “an appeal from the 
umpire to the bleachers” — as though govern¬ 
ment were a game in which the people were only 
spectators! 

In 1924 the progressive candidates urged that 
a legislature should have the power to reenact a 
164 




The Judicial Barricades 


law which had been nullified by a court merely 
because it conflicted with the political, social or 
economic theories of the judges. Thereupon the 
candidates of the “party of Lincoln 55 denounced 
LaFollette and Wheeler, exactly as Stephen A. 
Douglas had denounced Abraham Lincoln sixty- 
five years before, for “assailing the judiciary 55 and 
“undermining the constitution. 55 Worshipers of 
Chief Justice Marshall shouted their horror at 
such “attacks upon the courts, 55 in 1912 and 1924. 
Yet more than one hundred years before, when 
his colleague Justice Chase had been impeached, 
this same John Marshall wrote Chase in these 
words: “I think the modern doctrine of impeach¬ 
ment should yield to an appellate jurisdiction in 
the legislature. A reversal of those legal opinions 
deemed unsound by the legislature would cer¬ 
tainly better comport with the mildness of our 
character than a removal of the Judge who has 
rendered them unknowing of his fault. 55 

Thus over a century before Roosevelt and 
LaFollette made their “radical 55 attacks on the 
barbed wire protected bench, “the supreme [con¬ 
servative, 55 the ablest expounder and defender of 
our Constitution, the great Chief Justice Marshall 
himself, had proposed the “recall of decisions 55 — 
165 





Tents of the Mighty 


as a “milder” method of correcting judicial error 
than the removal of the judge! 

It is the height of fashion for conservative pa¬ 
triots to attack members of Congress and force 
them out of office because they make bad laws. 
But any one who seeks to criticize or to remove 
a judge who makes bad laws will be called a 
“dangerous radical” and may even be excluded 
from cocktail parties in our “best homes.” Yet 
sometimes the law made by a court is so bad that 
it is laughable. I remember how, during the 
progressive party campaign in 1912, we tried to 
place the names of our candidates on the official 
ballot in Illinois, in accordance with rights 
definitely written in the state constitution and 
statutes. The state Supreme Court (composed 
exclusively of judges from opposing parties) de¬ 
nied our petition in a decision so difficult to justify 
that the opinion-writer resorted to this strange 
argument: “The object of the official ballot is not 
to furnish voters with information as to the persons 
who are the candidates of their respective parties, 
or of any parties . . ! Yet we were required 

to accept such “laws” as reverently as though 
it had been written on tablets of stone and sent 
down by a special messenger from Mount Sinai. 
166 




The Judicial Barricades 


The portentous remarks of eminent counsel 
often reveal their reverential attitude with amus¬ 
ing clearness. During the arguments of the 
O’Fallon case before the Interstate Commerce 
Commission, the scholarly John E. Benton re¬ 
ferred to a very solemn railroad lawyer as, “frown¬ 
ing down upon us like the messenger of one vested 
with power to destroy all our works . . . not ex¬ 
actly like one preaching a new gospel, but rather 
as one who, speaking with authority, condescends 
to expound to the blind and unregenerate the 
justice and reasonableness of the decrees of the 
everlasting God!” 

In this same group of arguments, I had sug¬ 
gested to the Commission that it had an independ¬ 
ent function of government to perform; that it 
might properly seek light upon legal duties and 
legal rights in the decisions of the courts; but 
that it should not “listen with reverent ears to 
every casual opinion” of a judge upon “questions 
of public policy,” which the courts themselves 
agree should be decided by legislators and not 
by judges. Whereupon Judge Brantley, one of 
the chief counsel for the railroads, announced that 
his only reply to my argument would be to tell a 
story of the old doorkeeper in the Capitol, who 
167 




Tents of the Mighty 


was trying to keep a visitor out of the crowded 
Supreme Court room, and who said: “You 
better remember this. If you gets in contempt 



“Ifyou gets in contempt of this court you ain’t got nowhere to 
appeal to except to God ” 


of this Court you ain’t got nowhere to appeal to 
except to God!” 

In comment upon these humorous remarks, I 
would observe that respect for superior intelli- 
168 



















The Judicial Barricades 


gence or authority may indicate a sound sense 
of social discipline; but that prostration before 
human beings or their opinions indicates only a 
lack of full self-respect. If in truth the only appeal 
from the Supreme Court is to God, it might be 
wise to provide for an intermediary appeal to 
the American people! Instead of taking an ap¬ 
peal to the “God of Hosts” in 1861, it might have 
been less ruinous to have appealed even from 
the Supreme Court to the bleachers! The judge 
who himself has the courage to dissent should 
expect no less courage in those against whom he 
rules. Those who cry shrilly with Chief Justice 
Marshall that “an attack on the judiciary is in 
fact an attack upon the Union” betray a fear of 
criticism which is likely to destroy both the free¬ 
dom of a people and the wisdom of their rulers. 

It may be revealing a dangerous secret but, 
in confidence that very few will perceive its signifi¬ 
cance, I will venture to reveal the fact that no 
progressive party in the United States will ever 
progress appreciably until its rank and file have 
been educated to understand that the principal 
and supreme law makers in this nation are the 
judges. All “inside” students of government and 
“practical politicians” of the first rank know this. 

169 




Tents of the Mighty 


But among one hundred and fifteen million people, 
the bulk of those who think at all on the subject 
believe that they elect senators and representa¬ 
tives to “make” their laws and that the judges 
only “interpret” and “enforce” the laws that 
other people make. No popular conception is 
equally untrue except the belief in Zion City, 
Illinois, that the world is flat. 

When a gangster in Chicago, or a politician in 
Washington, or a corporation president in New 
York, wants to know the “law,” he is only mildly 
interested in what may be written in the statutes. 
His vivid interest is in knowing what some judge 
will do. He wants his lawyer to tell him that, 
because — in the authoritative words of Mr. Jus¬ 
tice Holmes — “The prophecies of what the 
courts will do in fact, and nothing more preten¬ 
tious, are what I mean by the law.” 

Most judges, either because of policy or self- 
deception or simple ignorance, repeat what the 
great legal scholar Austin called “the childish 
fiction” that they do not make the law. In the 
Daugherty injunction case, for example, all the 
rulings of the court were announced as though 
they were a statement of long standing law, made 
by some one else in some other place. Yet a legal 
170 




The Judicial Barricades 


writer of real authority — Professor W. W. Cook 
— explained where and how this law was made 
in the Yale Law Journal of December, 1922, 
where he wrote: 

4 ‘The case presented to the learned judge was 
one which required the making of new law; that 
is, it involved the exercise of the power to 
legislate, to establish the law for the case in 
hand.” 

Professor Cook added that not one of the 
propositions stated by the court “can be regarded 
as a statement of well settled law.” The fact 
was that other federal judges were deciding the 
same questions in regard to the same strike and 
were writing conflicting statements of “the law” 
and were entering entirely different orders. So 
that “the law” which the strikers were ordered 
to obey was different in every court — and these 
different “laws” were often imposed on the same 
men. For instance, many judges authorized 
some of the strikers to picket — but Judge 
Wilkerson forbade all strikers to picket. The 
“law” was simply what each judge decided to 
do to the man brought before him. Nothing 

171 


more. 





Tents of the Mighty 


As a young man I listened with deep respect 
to the teachings of the eminent John Chipman 
Gray of Harvard. But it was years later before 
I got understanding of his wisdom and appreci¬ 
ated the scientific accuracy of his definition of 
“the law”: 

“The true view, as I submit, is that the Law 
is what the judges declare; that statutes, prece¬ 
dents, the opinions of learned experts, customs, 
and morality are the sources of the law; that 
back of everything lie the opinions of the ruling 
spirits of the community; who have the power to 
close any of these sources; but that as long as 
they do not interfere, the judges, in establishing 
Law, have recourse to these sources.” 

There, written in scholarly language, is the 
dangerous secret, which is well known to legal 
scientists but seldom revealed by lawyers or poli¬ 
ticians — principally because they don’t know it: 
“ The law is what the judges declare. Back of every- 
thing lie the opinions of the ruling spirits of the com¬ 
munity .” For twenty-five years we progressives 
babbled about “invisible government” and oc¬ 
casionally bleated about “judicial usurpation.” 
Meanwhile our law was being visibly prepared 
172 




The Judicial Barricades 


in the noisy, cock-sure opinions of our “ruling 
spirits. 55 These opinions were then being made 
into law, not by “judicial usurpation, 55 but by 
judges doing exactly what they were selected or 
appointed to do. 

Railway promoters were not “ruling spirits 55 
when 70,000 miles of road represented only a 
small scandal-clouded fraction of our national 
wealth. In that day the Supreme Court held 
that a scale of rates “fixed by the legislature binds 
the courts as well as the people. 55 But twenty 
years later railroad mileage and wealth bulked 
much larger and the same court decided that it 
had the power to prevent the enforcement of rates 
that did not provide a fair return on the capital 
invested. However, the court at that time de¬ 
clined to weigh the evidence so as to reach an 
independent opinion, but merely examined it 
sufficiently to see whether a reasonable judgment 
had been exercised by those who had fixed rates. 
But in twenty years more the “ruling spirits 55 
of the railroads and the nation had become iden¬ 
tical and by that time the law had been rewritten 
in the courts so as to provide that railroad owners 
must be allowed a “fair return upon the value 
of their property 55 and that the courts would ex- 
173 





Tents of the Mighty 


ercise an “independent judgment 55 upon the evi¬ 
dence to see whether this had been done. 

Thus, when we reached the end of the Roose¬ 
velt-Wilson era and carried the LaFollette-Bryan 
struggle for reasonable railroad rates into the 
Supreme Court in the O’Fallon case, and when, 
like good lawyers, we looked back over half a 
century to discover the probable law of today, 
that is, in order to guess what the courts would 
do, we could hardly help crying out: “How times 
have changed! 55 The “ruling spirits 55 of bygone 
agricultural America were gone forever. Lincoln 
had suggested in 1859 that farmers received more 
flattery than any other class because they cast 
more votes. But he conceded that as the most 
numerous class their interests were entitled to 
greatest consideration. The farm population of 
today casts fewer* votes, hears much less flattery 
even in campaign time, and the “ruling spirits 55 
give it all too little consideration for their own 
ultimate good. The voices of commerce and 
industry are heard most clearly in legislative halls 
and in the chambers of the courts. 

The dominating political issues of the future 
are most likely to arise between the wage-earners, 
the users of the wealth of America, and the own- 
174 





The Judicial Barricades 


ers, the managers of vast properties. The “ruling 
spirits 55 that make the law, the organizers and 
controllers of property rights, whose protection 
is the chief function of the courts, may learn to 
seek scientific guidance in shaping public policy, 
so that general instead of special interests may be 
advanced. Thus they may “‘secure the blessings 
of liberty 55 for more people and “promote the 
general welfare. 55 In this way they may actually 
“preserve, protect and defend the Constitution 
of the United States. 55 

On the other hand our “ruling spirits 55 may 
continue to seek in very human fashion to in¬ 
crease their mastery over those who are “just 
folks 55 — increasing the current deluge of propa¬ 
ganda about “service, 55 as a frothy substitute for 
a greater output of solid “service. 55 They may 
continue to provide more circuses and to increase 
the price of bread. In this event there must 
come a time when the organizers of those who 
use things and the organizers of those who own 
things will struggle to rule the minds of a people 
who have known and loved liberty. In that day 
many worried “intellectuals 55 may find themselves 
repeating the lines of the perplexed Oscar Wilde 
in his Sonnet to Liberty: 

175 





Tents of the Mighty 


Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes 
See nothing save their own unlovely woe, 
Whose minds know nothing, nothing care 
to know — 

But that the roar of thy Democracies, 

Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies, 
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea 
And give my rage a brother . . . Liberty! 

For this sake only do thy dissonant cries 
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings 
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades 
Rob nations of their rights inviolate 
And I remain unmoved — and yet, and yet, 
These Christs that die upon the barricades, 
God knows it I am with them, in some things. 


176 





VI 

TRYING TO BURY THE 
BIG STICK 



TRYING TO SOLVE LABOR ISSUES BY FORCE 
















VI 

TRYING TO BURY THE 
BIG STICK 

As I entered the Senator’s private office he 
waved his hand toward a huge blackboard 
covered with white letters and lines. “See what 
you think of that.” It was a diagram of a law 
he was proposing. Twenty-five printed pages 
had been translated into a few sentences set off 
in squares connected and related to each other 
by heavy lines and arrows. 

“I am going to take that into the committee 
room and then onto the floor of the Senate,” he 
explained. “The hardest thing to do is to get 
these men to think. I must make them see it 
without thinking. Most of them won’t read the 
bill and those who do won’t study it enough to 
know what it’s all about.” 

Just a few days before I had sat in the gallery of 
the House of Representatives when the republi¬ 
can floor leader, Nicholas Longworth, was speak¬ 
ing against this same bill. He misstated the 
central provision so absurdly that a roar of pro- 
179 


Tents of the Mighty 


test drove him red-faced from the floor. Yet a 
week previously, I had given him a condensed 
summary of the bill, together with a simple chart 
and offered to spend any amount of time desired 
in explaining the whole document. 

“No,” said the leader, “we have decided to 
oppose the bill, so there’s no use talking about it!” 

“We” meant the steering committee, of 
which, so far as I could ascertain, not a single 
member had made a careful study of the bill — 
which the entire republican organization, from 
the White House down, was to oppose in this 
session of Congress and then (after a limited re¬ 
vision) was to support and pass in the next session. 
The “regulars” did not need to study the Howell- 
Barkley Bill in 1924, because the “business in¬ 
terests” generally were opposed to any program 
offered by organized labor for the peaceful settle¬ 
ment of industrial disputes. They were still de¬ 
voted to the program of “deflating labor.” But 
another strategy was rapidly developing. The 
philosophy of “high wages” (to support high 
prices) was taking hold. Schemes for controlling 
labor organizations through company unions, 
group insurance, employe stock-ownership and 
similar devices, were gaining ground. Thus two 
180 




Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


years later the Watson-Parker Bill (a revision of 
the Howell-Barkley Bill, agreed to by both rail¬ 
way employers and employes) became a law, 
entitled the Railway Labor Act. 

Only thirteen senators and thirteen represent¬ 
atives voted against the revised bill and more of 
the leaders in each house read the bill that was 
passed than the bill against which they filibustered 
two years before. But it was still very difficult to 
get members to think about the proposed legislation 
— as the opposition learned when their elaborate 
arguments were washed out in the final roll-calls. 

Those who carry on successful campaigns to 
elect public officials, or to pass or defeat legisla¬ 
tion, know very well that “public opinion” is not 
a thought, but an emotion. “Public demand” 
speaks for organized desire, rather than for or¬ 
ganized need. 

An understanding that very few community 
leaders either think for themselves, or are capable 
of such thinking, is very important in speculating 
as to where we are going in the next generation. 
For about thirty years I have been noting in all 
varieties of social relations how bored and an¬ 
noyed most people are when asked to think out 
181 





Tents of the Mighty 


any problem, unless action is immediately neces¬ 
sary. The cigar-store clerk, the senator, the 
manufacturer, the judge, the dinner partner and 
the members of the family — all yawn politely 
when one “theorizes” about labor relations. But 
when a great strike makes it necessary for 4 ‘intelli¬ 
gent persons” to have opinions — or to do some¬ 
thing, like issuing an injunction — then the 
“theorists” on both sides of the argument are 
hastily called upon to supply the ideas needed to 
rationalize self-interest. 

Theory lures and guides the explorer. Science 
builds roads where theory had blazed trails. And 
so “theorists” produce most of the thinking neces¬ 
sary to human progress; while “practical” men, 
scornful of theories, just keep the wheels going 
round. This is a useful service; but the improve¬ 
ment and the guidance of social mechanisms are 
also matters of some importance. Probably the 
theorist has been nowhere more unwelcome, and 
the practical men nowhere more arrogant and 
incompetent, than in the field of labor relations. 
The officers of large corporations and the heads 
of labor unions have quite generally agreed upon 
ignoring the advice of “intellectuals” in the solu¬ 
tion of these common problems. 

182 



Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


My thoughts go back to a conference of 
friendly lawyers called by Samuel Gompers in 
1922 to give volunteer aid to the American Fed¬ 
eration of Labor in the handling of some knotty 
questions. We all recognized and discussed the 
serious organic weakness in the lack of a legal 
department (and an economic research depart¬ 
ment) in the federation. We knew that any 
suggestion of the sort would create the suspicion 
that some one was “looking for a job.” In a 
private discussion with President Gompers con¬ 
cerning some of our tactfully worded recommen¬ 
dations, he told me with amused scorn about how 
a certain lawyer had often urged upon him that 
the federation should provide something like a 
department of justice for the labor movement. 
“Of course he would have been the attorney 
general!” exploded Gompers, with knowing 
laughter. 

Long before I represented labor organizations 
to any considerable extent I had observed that 
each employer among my clients had his own 
“system” for dealing with employes. If he made 
money he was doubly assured that he knew “how 
to handle labor.” But if he lost money he never 
questioned his capacity as an employer. One 
183 




Tents of the Mighty 


man told me all the details of how he bankrupted 
and lost control of a large enterprise because of 
his battle with a labor union. Until I suggested 
it, he frankly admitted that he had never thought 
of consulting some one who might know more 
about the <£ labor game 55 than he knew. Other 
employers, as “wise 55 as this one, employ detective 
agencies, that fatten on labor disputes, to help 
them keep out of trouble! They infiltrate their 
shops with spies who stir up strife in order to 
justify their employment. “Theorists 55 who would 
advise against such follies are as unwelcome as 
labor agitators. 

In the year 1925 a joint committee represent¬ 
ing railroad employers and railroad employes 
made the first draft of the present federal law for 
the settlement of railway labor disputes. Then 
Colonel Thom, as counsel for railroads, and I, 
as counsel for the unions, were called in to rewrite 
the draft in language appropriate for a bill to 
be introduced in Congress. We were informed 
that critical comments were not desired, that we 
were to be “good, 55 that we were not to wrangle 
in lawyer fashion to give advantage to our clients. 
They had done their own bargaining. We were 
only to carry out their program. Thus deference 
184 




Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


was paid to the traditional employer-employe 
scorn of “expert advice.” 

But in this instance it happened that the “theo¬ 
rists” had not been really scorned. In truth the 
existing Railway Labor Act, which was drafted 
in these conferences, is the result of a long and 
tragic demonstration that labor relations in a 
great essential industry must be handled in a 
scientific manner, upon theories developed out 
of careful, honest research; or great economic 
losses and serious social conflicts will persistently 
recur. 

The “Debs strike” of 1894, the Erdman Act 
of 1898, the Newlands Act of 1913, the Adamson 
Eight-hour Law of 1916, the Transportation Act 
of 1920 and the shopmen’s strike of 1922, are 
major landmarks along the highway leading to 
the Railway Labor Act of 1926. Through in¬ 
creasing research into the causes and results of 
railroad labor controversies, there gradually de¬ 
veloped one common understanding among rep¬ 
resentatives of employers, employes and the 
public: some “method” must be found whereby 
each of the three groups could protect and pro¬ 
mote its interests in the actual operation of the 
industry. When men of competitive interest be- 
185 




Tents of the Mighty 


gin looking for a “method 55 of cooperation the 
rule of dull-minded, stubborn fighters is passing. 
Perhaps in a thousand years more it may be gone! 

Self-destructive money control, labor strikes 
and public regulation had taught all partisans 
in the transportation industry some humility; 
had induced some willingness to listen to one 
another; had caused them to study, to reflect, to 
counsel even with “academic theorists, 55 to experi¬ 
ment with new social programs. Oscar Wilde 
defined the Philistine as one “who upholds and 
aids the heavy, cumbrous, blind, mechanical 
forces of society, and who does not recognize 
dynamic force when he meets it either in a man 
or a movement. 55 The Philistines were losing 
authority in the railroad labor field. 

When Colonel Thom was testifying in support 
of the Watson-Parker Bill of 1926 he was asked 
to explain the change from his attitude of opposi¬ 
tion to the similar Howell-Barkley Bill of 1924. 
He replied with disarming candor that “if I am 
to be a man of affairs ... I have got to know 
a fact when I meet it in the road. 55 The railroad 
presidents for whom he spoke were not all Philis¬ 
tines, unable to understand the dynamic force of 
the railway labor movement. 

186 





Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


The Railroad Labor Board, created by the 
Transportation Act of 1920, had been the device 
of employers for settling labor disputes. Despite 
its apparently three-sided organization, it became 
in operation a one-sided — or at most a two- 
sided — mechanism for dealing with a three- 
sided problem. When the third group, the 
employes, could tolerate it no longer they devised 
a substitute law which was proposed jointly by 
Senator Howell of Nebraska and Congressman 
(now Senator) Barkley of Kentucky in 1924. 
The railway labor unions had tried, as well as a 
group of partisans could, to make their proposal 
three-sided, to establish a fair balance between 
the powers of the three competing forces of owner, 
worker and public interest. They had discussed 
their problem with reasonably open-minded rail¬ 
road officers, with political scientists, with public 
officials such as Secretary Hoover and Secretary 
Davis, with many senators and representatives. 
They had even taken counsel with a group of 
lawyers and waited patiently during months of 
research and restatement of their composite ideas. 

The resulting, carefully worked out, legislative 
proposal met the combined opposition of all the 
railroad managements, the principal commercial 

187 




Tents of the Might/ 


organizations, including the powerful anti-labor- 
union manufacturers, and the republican and 
democratic official leaders in Congress. The 
unions fought for a fair consideration of their 
program with one principal weapon — scientifi¬ 
cally organized education, supported by a voting 
power too vigorous to be ignored. Undoubtedly 
the political strength of the railroad employes 
earned them an attention that might otherwise 
have been denied, and insured them some con¬ 
gressional votes that would not have come from 
a mere appeal to reason. But the balance of 
power in Senate and House, between the natural 
partisans of employer and employe interests, came 
from men who were induced to study and became 
convinced that the existing law was a failure and 
that the employes were proposing a substitute 
which was worthy of a trial. 

The House committee refused to give the bill 
a hearing. A majority of the House voted to take 
the bill from the committee. The republican 
leaders started a filibuster. The light in the Cap¬ 
itol dome burned late. For two long days the 
parliamentary battle raged on the floor; and after 
twenty-four roll-calls a majority still supported 
the Barkley Bill. Then the session ended. On 
188 





Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


the Senate side, after extending hearings, a ma¬ 
jority of the Interstate Commerce Committee 
reported out the Howell Bill with a few amend¬ 
ments and a recommendation that it should pass. 
(I can still see the shining eyes of dear “Old Bob” 
LaFollette who came from his sick-bed to fight 
and vote for that favorable report!) But this 
action came too late for a vote upon the floor. 

For weeks and weeks the officers of the labor 
organizations had tramped the marble corridors 
of the Capitol, interviewing and reporting upon 
the attitude of every Senator and Representative, 
leaving pamphlets, preparing special memoran¬ 
dums, furnishing information, debating opposing 
arguments, supplying ammunition to friends. 
And all over the country the local lodges had 
been organizing sentiment in congressional dis¬ 
tricts to refute the claim that the workers were 
asking for “special legislation” and “ignoring the 
public interest.” Despite a suffocating opposi¬ 
tion, the organized railway workers had demon¬ 
strated that the Railroad Labor Board must go; 
that Congress would find some new method of 
harmonizing industrial relations on the railroads; 
that the new law would be written either with the 
aid of railroad managements, or else written over 
189 




Tents of the Mighty 


their protests. These were some of the facts 
that Colonel Thom, the wise legal adviser of the 
railroad presidents, found it necessary, as a man 
of affairs, to recognize when he met them in the 
middle of the road. 

So it happened that the next year a conference 
committee of railroad presidents and labor leaders 
was organized; the Howell-Barkley Bill was re¬ 
vised; the wobbly blessing of the Coolidge ad¬ 
ministration was bestowed upon the agreement 
of employers and employes; the chairmen of the 
Senate and House committees (Senator Watson 
and Representative Parker) introduced the re¬ 
vised bill on January 7, 1926; it was passed with 
only 13 votes against it in each house, and signed 
by the President on May 20, 1926. Thus began 
a new and vitally important experiment in social 
cooperation. 

No social scientist, of course, ignores the pro¬ 
found issue that has developed between the ideal¬ 
ism of self-government and the actuality of big 
business. The inevitable effect of massing the 
production of goods and services into enterprises 
of national and international size is to dwarf the 
individual to a social and political insignificance. 

190 



Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


The “independent citizen 55 tends to disappear — 
even in the professional classes. Dependent 
workers — wage-earners, salaried men, tenants, 
“hired men 55 of every degree —tend to increase. 
These dependents become more vitally interested 



The independent citizen tends to disappear 


in the immediate programs, policies and orders of 
commercial sovereigns than in remote political 
idealisms. 

The copper miner was not likely in 1929 to 
be enthused over anti-trust legislation when his 
wage was rising ten cents a day with every cent 
I 9 I 







Tents of the Mighty 


which the mine-owners 5 control could add to the 
price of copper. The railway worker found it 
safer in 1920 to get an increased wage out of in¬ 
creased transportation rates, in order to meet an 
increased cost of living, than to accept a lower 
wage in 1921 in the vague hope that lower rates 
might bring a lower cost of living. More and 
more the tendency of concentrating industry is 
to make the individual primarily the subject of 
a business empire and secondarily a citizen of the 
republic. The increasing size and power of these 
commercial empires hastens the day when either 
the idealism of self-government will cease to con¬ 
trol political government or it must take control 
of economic government. 

The national sovereignty can be no more than 
a composite of its sovereign parts. Feudal barons 
in England maintained a feudal kingdom and 
forced a charter of their liberties from their king. 
Thirteen democratic states in America established 
a federal republic of limited powers. Then, as 
political state sovereignty declined and the com¬ 
mercial rule of national corporations rose, the 
political government of the nation became more 
and more representative of national commerce. 
When Calvin Coolidge said that the 4 ‘business of 
192 




Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


America is business, 55 many people actually ap¬ 
plauded — as though the announcement of our 
spiritual degradation were a cause for pride! But 
the Harding-Coolidge era at least made it plain 
that unless the commercial empires within our 
democracy are transformed into industrial de¬ 
mocracies, the actuality of a political democracy 
will disappear. 

Against the autocratic control of industry only 
one effective opposition has been developed and 
maintained — the unions of wage-earners who 
have demanded a voice in the regulation of their 
wages and working conditions. Primarily these 
unions have sought, not to participate in, and to 
assume responsibility for, the control of industry, 
but merely to recapture a larger share of the 
gains produced. But the pressure of reality has 
forced even the more simple-minded leaders to 
extend their program. To assert the employer’s 
responsibility to his employes, to demand ade¬ 
quate pay and decent working conditions, was a 
simple and appealing cry for justice when thou¬ 
sands of employers were competing for customers 
and for workers. But when the united employes 
of an industry are dealing with the united em- 
193 




Tents of the Mighty 


ployers the problem is more complex. What is 
just and fair is less easily defined as competitive 
standards fade. 



Perhaps this wholesale crippling of minds and bodies helped turn 
the tide to Prosperity — Perhaps! 

In 1921 the United States Railroad Labor 
Board reduced wages of 1,750,000 employes over 
$300,000,000. The board claimed that the rail¬ 
roads were in desperate financial straits. (This 
was not accurate; but many of them were in bad 
condition.) The next year over a million em- 
194 





Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


ployes were reduced to the same extent again — 
a staggering loss in a two years’ period. The shop¬ 
men’s strike of 400,000 men resulted. The follow¬ 
ing year was one of the most prosperous years in 
railroad history. Thus a spotlight was thrown 
upon a great issue in political-economic-social 
policy. Perhaps it was necessary to have huge 
cuts in wages, widespread suffering imposed on 
millions, a vast increase of impoverished homes, 
undernourished and underprotected men, women 
and children. Perhaps this wholesale crippling 
of minds and bodies helped turn the tide to “pros¬ 
perity” — perhaps! 

It seems more reasonable to conclude from 
subsequent events that the wage reductions of 
1921 and 1922 were ghastly blunders. A little 
more faith in the future (which might have been 
expressed in “credit inflation”), and a little less 
fear of money striking (which was expressed in 
“labor deflation”) would have warranted a public 
policy of maintaining the human standard and 
not debasing the currency of a day’s labor. In 
any event, organized railway labor was con¬ 
vinced that a governmental machinery had been 
created to enforce a short-sighted, selfish employer 
policy and that the first step in reversing that 
195 




Tents of the Mighty 


policy was to destroy that governmental ma¬ 
chine. So the Railroad Labor Board was abol¬ 
ished. 

The present law requires representatives of 
railroad employers and employes to confer and 
to “make every reasonable effort” to agree upon 
wages and working conditions and to settle their 
disputes. If they are unable to agree, government 
mediators may be called in to help bring about 
an agreement. But the mediators cannot issue 
orders to anyone. If conference and mediation 
fail, and the parties agree to arbitrate, the govern¬ 
ment will provide the arbitration machinery. 
The Board of Mediation will appoint neutral ar¬ 
bitrators and an award will be enforced in the 
federal courts. The absence of strong-arm meth¬ 
ods in this law created much skepticism in Con¬ 
gress. When the provisions were being explained 
one senator referred to mediation as some more 
of the “rose-water” process. Members of both 
houses were curious to learn how we expected to 
settle disagreements without invoking force and 
compulsion against somebody, sometime. 

It was patiently explained over and over again 
that we had been trying to solve labor issues by 
196 




Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


force for many centuries, without conspicuous suc¬ 
cess. Employer force, employe force, political 
force, had all been tried. We were now seeking 
to equalize the pressures of all three — so that 
no one could give orders — but any two could 
unite to resist the unfair demands of the third — 
and yet not have the power to impose unfair de¬ 
mands upon the third. We explained that arbi¬ 
tration was not the ideal method of getting an 
agreement — as that would mean turning the 
task of employer and employe over to a third 
party to perform. Arbitration was a temporary 
expedient — and so was mediation. “Self-gov¬ 
ernment in industry 55 was the real aim—not 
political government. 

That phrase, which I first used with some care, 
proved a common denominator of peculiar value. 
Railroad managers who resented “outside inter¬ 
ference 55 from public officials, or labor unions, 
were strong for self-government. Congressmen, 
wearied of many futile efforts at public regulation 
of business operations, welcomed the desire of an 
industry to regulate itself. Labor organizations, 
traditionally supporting the right of self-organiza¬ 
tion and collective bargaining and nursing the 
wounds inflicted by governmental orders, were 
197 




Tents of the Mighty 


seeking first of all freedom from private or public 
coercion. “Self-government 55 sounded good to 
them. 

Indeed the beginning and the end of the labor 
movement, the motive and the goal of the strong- 
minded individualist in commerce, the inspiration 
and stated object of our republic, is “self-govern¬ 
ment. 55 The pitiful thing is that so often in our 
desire for self-government — for individual free¬ 
dom of action — we forget that the fellow whose 
desires interfere with ours is seeking for himself 
the same right of self-expression which we are 
assured is our own birthright. It is so easy to 
forget that self-government demands that we 
hold ourselves back, perhaps more often than we 
push ourselves forward; and that our freedom to 
climb upon the backs of others implies their equal 
freedom to clamber up our vertebrae. But there 
is always the happy possibility of getting agree¬ 
ment upon an abstract principle among men 
struggling with concrete competitive interests. 
So we all preached “self-government in industry 55 
and supported the Railway Labor Act. 

General Atterbury, of the Pennsylvania Rail¬ 
road, for years one of the “black devils 55 of the 
unions and the “white hope 55 of anti-union em- 
198 




Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


ployers, told the Senate committee on January 14, 
1926 —with obvious enjoyment of a new sensa¬ 
tion — that this “is an epoch making occasion. 
Never before have I been before a committee of 
the Senate or of the House that I have not been 
in opposition on any labor question with those 
of our employes with whom I have had to live. 
Today we come to you with an agreed-upon 
program.” 

Since the passage of this law a large part of 
my time has been engaged in trying to make it 
work. I have watched the settlement of literally 
thousands of minor disputes through conferences. 
Several hundred major cases have been settled 
through conference, mediation or arbitration. A 
few serious strikes have been threatened but none 
has taken place. Much can be said from differ¬ 
ent viewpoints about the good and bad results 
of the law. Its obligations have been both scru¬ 
pulously observed and flagrantly violated. Those 
who believe in a law or a principle work with it. 
Those disbelieving, work against it. 

From the public standpoint, it will be con¬ 
ceded that peaceful, continuous, efficient service 
has been given by a fairly well-satisfied operating 
force. On the other hand, it will be argued that 
199 




Tents of the Mighty 


wage increases have been the rule; that this 
should satisfy the employes, but that rates can’t 
be reduced with increased operating expenses and 
that a period of static or reduced wages may prove 
the law a failure. Against this argument, friends 
of the law may point out, first, that a general rise 
in the level of railway wages was imperatively 
needed to undo the mischief of mistaken wage- 
reductions and to give these workers a standard 
of living appropriate to the social value of their 
work. Second, it has been proved persistently 
that wage-earners recognize and accept static 
wages in economic pauses or depressions, because 
diminishing employment induces more anxiety to 
retain jobs than to get increased pay. Third, 
there should be no need for wage-reductions in 
any essential, progressive industry. It will be 
time enough to meet the problems of a decadent, 
less essential transportation industry when we 
observe indications of a drastic change in present 
economic conditions. These are not the problems 
of the immediate future. 

The present semi-legalized method of solving 
the labor problems of the steam railroads may 
be retained or discarded. Certainly, if retained, 
it will be improved. But its greatest importance 
200 






Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


as a social experiment lies in the principles and 
theories which induced the undertaking. Here 
we find employers and employes engaged in a 
deliberate effort to democratize industry — to try 
the process of c ‘self-government. 5 5 This effort 
should not be confused with any programs for 
“socializing 55 industry. There is no endeavor 
here to determine the responsibility of an indus¬ 
try to society — except to meet the responsibility 
of owners and operators to insure the continuous, 
efficient production of necessary services. But 
primarily the effort is to eliminate the waste of 
conflict and to promote the economies of coop¬ 
eration in the work of an industrial machine 
wherein the brains, muscles and properties of 
several million individuals are utilized and coor¬ 
dinated. 

At a time when the tendency in political gov¬ 
ernment is distinctly away from democracy and 
in the direction of autocracy, it is deeply signifi¬ 
cant that a contra-tendency in industrial govern¬ 
ment should be decisively shown in one of the 
most essential industries. And in this industry 
autocratic control has been able to offer some 
specially persuasive arguments and has had a 
long, comparatively unhampered opportunity to 
201 




Tents of the Mighty 


prove its merits. But as railroad kingdoms grew 
into empires, not only was arbitrary authority 
challenged more vigorously, but it demonstrated 
an increasing incapacity to fulfill its responsibility. 
The rulers of the roads have developed as men 
with a gift for human leadership. The slave- 
drivers have conspicuously failed. 

The course of the labor movement on the rail¬ 
roads has had equal significance. The most pow¬ 
erful and responsible labor organizations in the 
country are found here. They are democratically 
organized and operated, exhibiting all the weak¬ 
nesses — and also the abiding strength — of a 
self-disciplined community that actually governs 
itself. 

If self-government expands in the railroad 
industry and proves its worth, the example may 
develop a similar force in other industries. “I 
hope the day will come when these great business 
organizations will truly belong to the men who 
are giving their lives and their efforts to them, I 
care not in what capacity. Then they will use 
capital truly as a tool and they will all be inter¬ 
ested to the highest economic advantage. Then 
we shall have no hired men.” Thus spoke re¬ 
cently Owen D. Young, chairman of the General 
202 




Trying to Bury the Big Stick 


Electric Company — a “practical man,” who is 
also able to think. 

In such a day there might grow, out of our 
present spreading commercial empires, a group 
of industrial republics within our national bound¬ 
aries, which would so dominate our politics that 
democratic government might have a new birth 
in state and nation. In this event the program of 
putting “more business in government” might 
actually come to mean something honorable — 
not increased commercial control of government 
for private purposes — but increased reliance 
upon principles of self-government that had been 
found essential to maintain the health of private 
industry. Of course, this is only a “theory” of 
what might come to pass. There may be scant 
justification for believing that it will be the devel¬ 
opment of our industrial-political system. But 
such “half-glimpsed turrets” do appear to the 
eyes of eager watchers when the mists that hover 
over the future of America are shaken by the 
trumpeting of an ideal that might well come 
from the “hid battlements of eternity.” 


203 




. 











VII 

NEW CAPTAINS AND 
OLD DREAMS 



WE MUST GO FORWARD TO SOMETHING 












































































VII 

NEW CAPTAINS AND 
OLD DREAMS 

It is now two years since I began deliberately 
to review the pageant of my generation. Out 
of dusty boxes have been gathered faded letters 
and yellow clippings, pictures and programs and 
pamphlets that stirred memories. And from these 
memories, as from the smoke of burning leaves in 
autumn and the odor of warm earth in spring, have 
come reminders that life moves on through end¬ 
less repetitions. “As it was it ever shall be 55 — and 
yet in another view it will never be the same again. 

Personalities and events that were confusing 
and irrational when we were plodding along in 
the dust of busy days become more orderly parts 
of a procession of events as they pass my solitary 
reviewing stand. Perhaps I have marshaled them 
to fit into my own scheme of things. But I have 
tried, so far as I could, to let them arrange them¬ 
selves, so that from the parade of yesterdays one 
might catch a vision of the marching morrows. 
Nor have I sought to debase the captains and the 
207 


Tents of the Mighty 


kings to common clay by recalling petty, homely 
details of their lives and work; but only to produce 
a pageant of real men and women — not a pro¬ 
cession of heavenly bodies. There is falsity in the 
view that is too intimate or too remote. As Gerald 
Massey put it: 

To those who walk beside them, great men seem 
Mere common earth; but distance makes them 

stars. 

It is of little importance to record that Roose¬ 
velt was deaf in one ear and blind in one eye, or 
that LaFollette wore spats; but it is important 
to understand how and why each man disliked 
and distrusted the other; which requires a mi¬ 
croscopic analysis of common earth. After which 
a telescope should be employed to view the ideals 
that shot upward from the clay and still shine in 
our national firmament. And likewise unimpor¬ 
tant are the peccadillos and peculations of Hard¬ 
ing’s Ohio gang. But it is of great importance 
to note that triumphant materialism, having sworn 
allegiance to national prohibition, promptly 
drank itself to death, leaving many interesting 
studies for the microscope but nothing to be seen 
through the telescope. 

208 




New Captains and Old Dreams 


However, let us appraise justly the merits of 
the commercial-minded rulers of our day. It is 
not my conclusion from a long and intimate ex¬ 
perience with those who govern us in legislatures, 
in executive offices, in the courts and in the pri¬ 
vate councils of social and industrial leadership, 
that our influential citizens are lacking in brains 
or energy. On the contrary, the ability to do 
what one wishes to do is exhibited on every hand. 
Commercial and financial leaders have driven 
ahead with resistless power to develop and exploit 
our natural resources. They have created huge 
organizations for mass production and distribu¬ 
tion, despite the natural fears of millions of 
common folk that these superhuman corporate 
personalities would enslave the individual. They 
have improved the production and distribution 
of almost everything except law and justice. 

These great material undertakings have been 
carried on with intricate and resourceful skill. 
An enormous amount of hard thinking has been 
evidenced in planning how things can be done. 
The point of criticism, however, at which I have 
arrived is that there has been a woeful scarcity of 
hard thinking in planning what things should be 
done — based of course on hard thinking as to 
209 




Tents of the Mighty 


why these things should be done. It seems more 
evident every day that some of this sort of plan¬ 
ning and thinking has become essential — and 
therefore it is reasonable to assume that the next 
generation of “progressives” will undertake the 
beginning of this task. 

Not so long ago I talked with a confidential 
associate of Samuel Insull. Despite the unpleas¬ 
antness of my personal relations with that man, 
I expressed an appreciation of his terrific capacity 
to build, to expand and to operate public utilities. 
“But , 55 I said, “the sort of thing he does, as in the 
Frank L. Smith case, the corrupting of govern¬ 
ment, the destruction of faith in ourselves and our 
fellowmen — that’s what I can’t understand. 
What is the use putting electric lights into a mil¬ 
lion homes if it only enables more people to read 
about more crimes? What is the use of this ma^ 
terial progress if you degrade the mental and 
moral standards of the people in the process? 
How can a man who has a brain think it worth 
while to corrupt our morals in order to light our 
homes? It seems to me that Insull really believes 
he is a misunderstood public servant, that he 
isn’t just trying to make money or even to grab 
power, that he wants to be regarded as a great 
210 




New Captains and Old Dreams 


man, as a public benefactor. But how can he 
justify the means he uses?” 

“You don’t understand him,” said my friend 
— and I nodded. “Insull doesn’t ask ‘Why?’ 
He doesn’t speculate about the future. He isn’t 
looking all around him to see everything that is 
going on. He has his eyes fixed on the job in 
front of him. He sees that plant which he is 
going to build, that will produce so many kilo¬ 
watt hours. He is going to build it and get the 
machinery going smoothly and then go on to 
the next job. He knows that this job ought to 
be done. He sees the one way it can be done and 
he goes that way. He doesn’t ask ‘Why?’” 

When I walked out of that office I felt that I 
had found an answer to a question I had been 
asking for many years. We have had, let us say, 
fifty years of control by the men who don’t ask 
“Why?” They have been deciding what we 
should do and how to do it. In the era of Roose¬ 
velt progressivism we began to question the 
methods rather than the job. The “pursuit of 
happiness” after the American Revolution was de¬ 
fined generally as the pursuit of material well¬ 
being. The spiritual goal of life was determined by 
one’s church. Freedom in religious views was 
211 




Tents of the Mighty 


assured by law. If the curse of poverty could 
be lifted from a whole people, if individual free¬ 
dom and a comfortable life could be assured, it 
seemed that America would lead the world in 
the pursuit of happiness. 

With this tradition behind us the period of 
industrial expansion developed, with only one 
serious evil apparent — the unfair sharing of the 
burdens and the rewards. Progressives believed 
that we must “pass prosperity around” — and 
that we must produce it with “social justice.” 
We were not seeking a social goal — not a com¬ 
munity existence — but a better individual life. 
Therefore “social justice” did not require us to 
ask, “Why should we produce 20,000,000 auto¬ 
mobiles?” The question was, “How shall we 
produce them?” And the progressives of my 
generation answered stoutly: “By well-paid 
workers, able to raise healthy children and prop¬ 
erly insured against the hazards of accident, 
disease and old age.” 

But it is entirely possible that a new generation 
of New Yorkers, for example, observing streets 
so congested with individual cars that automobile 
transportation is frequently slower than walking, 
will ask: “Why do we want any more automobiles 
212 




New Captains and Old Dreams 


on the island of Manhattan ? 55 It is significant 
that in recent years a' number of people have 
been asking: “Why do we have so many coal 
mines ? 55 and “Why do we produce more coal 
and oil than we can use ? 55 The very radical idea 
has been gaining acceptance, even in conserva¬ 
tive quarters, that the social interest in the con¬ 
sumer is greater than in the producer; that the 
opportunity to buy what you want to buy may 
be more important than the opportunity to sell 
what you want to sell. 

Our political programs have always been 
founded on assumptions of common purposes. 
Unfortunately, purposes that were once common, 
but are no longer, remain embedded in political 
theory as the assumed basis of common action. 
That causes the antagonism evident at present 
between social control and individual desires. 
As a result of this conflict we have today little 
sense of direction in our national life. In three 
national campaigns since the World War we have 
heard little of anything except programs for 
standing still (called “maintaining prosperity 55 ) 
or going back (to Hamiltonian normalcy or 
Jeffersonian democracy). But we all know that 
we must go forward to something; and we all 
213 




Tents of the Mighty 


feel that we are going forward — since even our 
newer vices appear vigorous rather than decadent. 

It seems inevitable that a group leadership 
will develop which will proclaim a definite pur¬ 
pose for social organization with an appropriate 
program, which must create in turn an opposition 
of equally positive convictions. To prophesy the 
character of this new leadership, or the social 
class from which it may arise, is to leave the fire¬ 
side chair of reminiscence and to stand shivering 
under the mocking stars, seeking to point out 
that North Star that always has been so difficult 
for me to locate. Yet there seems little use in 
reviewing the past that none can live again, 
except in the search for guidance toward that 
future wherein everyone must live. And so I 
venture to suggest that — against a leadership 
of traders, pawn-brokers and slave-drivers who 
have sought the mastery of the world for the 
witless purpose of squeezing more money out of 
more men, another leadership has been quietly 
but relentlessly coming on. 

During some thirty years I have had long and 
intimate contacts with many men who combined 
a deep love of purely scientific research with a 
keen interest in the use of extended knowledge 
214 





New Captains and Old Dreams 


to increase common happiness. Perhaps it is 
significant of the change in “academic” ideals 
that the mottoes of old Harvard and Yale are 
respectively “Truth” and “Light and Truth” 
(which are rather abstract concepts), while the 
motto of the young University of Chicago is: 
“Let knowledge be increased that life may be 
enriched.” 

In college days, Frederick Starr aroused such « 
interest in anthropology that, although neglectful 
of many other opportunities, I took advanced 
courses in this field. Here was a man who spent 
years actually living in Japan, Mexico and less 
“civilized” parts of the world, wearing the clothes, 
eating the food, doing the daily work, adopting 
the customs of the people whom he sought to 
understand and to interpret to an “Anglo-Saxon 
civilization.” Acquaintance with this scholar 
and his work developed an early antipathy to 
that common encrusting of the mind which 
comes from an unthinking acceptance of one’s 
own environment as the most reasonable or 
“highest” form of human society. 

Work in the physics laboratories within the 
pervading influence of Michelson and Millikan 
(and the less conspicuous but much loved Henry 

215 




Tents of the Mighty 


Gale), studies in psychology and ethics illumi¬ 
nated by Tufts and Angell, frequent association 
through student activities with the dynamic Pres¬ 
ident Harper, sowed seeds in a careless, but 
inquisitive young mind that sprouted long years 
after my patient preceptors had undoubtedly 
lost hope of any vegetation. 

Further stimulation came at Harvard. In 
addition to direct seeding from such legal phil¬ 
osophers as Ames, Gray, Smith, Beale and Willis- 
ton, I found myself, through a roommate who 
had taken honors in philosophy, being mentally 
fertilized with sprayings from the thoughts of 
Royce, James, Santayana and Miinsterberg. For 
ten years after my return to Chicago, I lived 
almost as though a member of the university fac¬ 
ulty, my social life centering in the Faculty Club. 

It was enlightening to a man who worked in 
“the City 55 to contrast the discussion of social 
problems in the down town lunch clubs with the 
analysis of similar issues at a professor’s dinner- 
table. The “rule of thumb 55 men were driving 
ahead with bold self-assurance. The men who 
weighed and measured all things with instruments 
of precision moved cautiously to tentative con¬ 
clusions. Failure and meekness and hesitation 
216 




New Captains and Old Dreams 


amused one group. But success and pride and 
certainty aroused ironic comment in the other. 
The alchemy of business leaders in converting 
raw materials and crude human desires into gold 
inspired a distrustful respect in academic circles, 
which had its counterpart in the distrustful respect 
with which business men examined the cc theo¬ 
retical ’ 5 observations and “impractical” products 
of the “academicians.” The economists revered 
the practical wisdom of financiers and the politi¬ 
cal scientists listened eagerly to professional pol¬ 
iticians. On the other hand, the technical 
advisers of business enterprise carried their 
problems with due humility to the university 
physicists and chemists. But those who studied 
man individually or socially in the university — 
the teachers in what are now called the “social 
sciences” — had little standing in the world of 
practical affairs years ago when I first began 
speculating about the political leadership of the 
future. And they have no great standing there 
today. 

Apparently the social sciences have a long 
road to travel to a place of authority comparable 
with that achieved by the natural sciences in 
their rapid progress of the last four hundred years 
217 




Tents of the Mighty 


(of which the first three hundred and fifty were 
the hardest!). Yet in the collaboration of natural 
science and social science there seems to lie the 
clearest hope that political progress toward an 
idealistic, responsible leadership may succeed the 
recent retrogression toward a cynical, irresponsi¬ 
ble direction of social forces. 

In some distant day a wise critic may epito¬ 
mize the political follies of my generation in the 
story of “Merriam and Chicago.” It is worthy 
of a massive volume. Here was a man of excep¬ 
tional capacity and training for public service — 
now generally recognized as a major political 
scientist. While teaching in the university he 
was elected an alderman, and rapidly rose into 
supreme leadership in municipal affairs. His 
campaign as republican nominee for mayor, 
after the rout of all the old line republican bosses, 
inspired an outpouring of public spirit without 
parallel in municipal politics. The really “best” 
elements throughout the city were with him 
solidly — the younger captains of business, the 
ablest labor leaders, the outstanding professional 
men, the progressive bankers, the great majority 
of hard-working, clean-living citizens who had 
brains enough to think for themselves. 

218 





New Captains and Old Dreams 


But the men “who knew what they wanted, 5 ’ 
the men who made money out of control of gov¬ 
ernment, the political bosses and their masters, 
the public utility operators, the “business men 55 
who thrived on protection and privilege and law 
evasion, in the stockyards, the big stores, the 
breweries, and in the underworld that clamors 
through “respectable 55 sponsors for a wide-open 
town — they were solidly against a “reformer, 55 
a “professor, 55 a “radical. 55 They were solidly 
against any man who knew how a city ought to 
be run, and had demonstrated his practical abil¬ 
ity by exposing graft, by destroying the power of 
crooks and by constructive legislation. An ordi¬ 
nary reform administration would be bad enough 
in their eyes. But a reform administration with 
courage and brains and practical wisdom would 
be intolerable! 

In this campaign I was one of a small board 
of strategy that knew what was really happening. 
Just before the end of the campaign a client came 
to me as spokesman for the brewers, asking my 
personal assurance that the man to be named 
for one office would be acceptable to them. In 
exchange for this pledge he would promise that 
219 




Tents of the Mighty 


the beer wagon drivers would “pass the word” 
on the day before election to all saloon-keepers 
(most of whom were mortgaged to the brewers) 
that Merriam was to be elected. 



“I can’t promise,” I answered, “because I 
can’t deliver. Will you go to see Merriam with 
me?” 

“No,” he said, “he won’t give us a promise. 
But if you give me your word I’ll look to you to 
make good.” 


220 









New Captains and Old Dreams 


“You know I wouldn’t promise unless I felt 
sure I could make good,” I said with a smile. “I 
think you are safe and that the kind of a man 
you are afraid of won’t be named. But nobody 
can deliver Merriam and I won’t pretend I can.” 

“We can get what we want,” he replied, “from 
the other side. But I want to help Merriam, if 
I can be sure to protect our legal rights.” 

“Give us an even break,” I suggested. 

“I’ll do what I can,” he said dubiously. 

After the election, which was lost by a few 
thousand votes, I told Merriam of this interview. 

“Why didn’t you promise him?” he asked, 
with a quizzical look. 

“You know very well why I didn’t,” was my 
answer; “and besides I’m not so sure the word 
would have been passed. They may have been 
just casting an anchor to the windward. It looked 
as though you would win anyway.” 

“Probably that was it,” he assented. 

But the powers that be were not content with 
Merriam’s defeat as mayor. They kept ham¬ 
mering away at his ward until they actually de¬ 
feated, as alderman from a “silk stocking” ward, 
this extraordinarily able, efficient, proved public 
221 




Tents of the Mighty 


servant. And the next day the president of the 
gas company publicly stated his satisfaction with 
the result! Yet those who criticize the control of 
government by public utility operators, and by 
the guardians of other special interests, are called 
“radicals!” 

It is true that the social scientists disagree 
with one another over their theories and definitions 
and principles and such “laws” as may be tenta¬ 
tively discussed. But such conflicts of opinion 
are inevitable in intelligent analysis of any forces 
in a world composed of, and bounded by, the 
unknown. I have sought to learn from Michelson 
something of his agreement and disagreement 
with Einstein; and developed a headache as the 
principal proof of cerebration. But though Ein¬ 
stein question Newton and Michelson question 
Einstein, do we reject them all or, if we need to 
know the speed of light, are we apt to rely upon 
Michelson’s latest measurement? 

It is probable that if an epidemic of menacing 
proportions should begin the destruction of thou¬ 
sands of lives in Chicago, some of my old friends 
in the medical faculties and research laboratories 
would be asked to aid a politics-cursed health 
department; and for a time several million people 
222 





New Captains and Old Dreams 


would take orders from obscure Dr. Alpha and 
humble Professor Omega. But when (even now, 
as I am writing) crime and corruption have 
destroyed the security of life and property and 
rotted the moral fiber of the community, there 
is no loud demand that men like Merriam and 
women like Jane Addams analyze this social dis¬ 
ease and prescribe a remedy. Instead, a civic 
committee is formed of the business executives, 
bankers and lawyers whose short-sighted ihethods 
of making money, whose self-interested uses of 
public power for private profit, have created and 
maintained the political system which they are 
now assembled to reform. 

My thoughts go back to a solemn farce en¬ 
acted by the Public Utilities Commission after 
the close of the war. In order to determine to 
what extent larger earnings should be allowed to 
the public utilities, because of prevailing high in¬ 
terest rates, an impressive group of bankers had 
been summoned before the commission. One 
by one they testified that higher rates were 
necessary, that money could not be obtained 
except at higher rates. 

Then, being given the privilege of making a 
statement as an official representative of the City 
223 





Tents of the Might/ 


Council (the Bill Thompson-Samuel Insull ad¬ 
ministration being discreetly silent) I suggested 
that, since the profits of bankers came out of 
lending money, it might be well to call in a few 
less biased witnesses. Undoubtedly these men 
knew what they were talking about; but it was 
strange that the rates they paid for savings de¬ 
posits had not been advanced from the long 
standing three per cent, in view of their testimony 
that money could not be obtained for even safe 
investment for less than eight or nine per cent. 
It was my thought that perhaps professors of 
political economy, authorities on finance in the 
universities, might be called to testify as to whether 
public policy should encourage higher or lower 
interest rates. Again, I suggested that labor 
leaders might be brought in to testify concerning 
wages and cost of living and unemployment; 
that social workers might also advise whether 
the low-income groups could afford to pay in¬ 
creased charges for public service out of current 
wages. 

Members of the commission displayed con¬ 
siderable interest in these remarks. Newspaper 
men demanded complete copies of my prepared 
statement and assured me it was “hot stuff.” 
224 




New Captains and Old Dreams 


Then the descendant of Paul Revere’s compan¬ 
ion galloped into the scene to warn the country 
that the red-coats were on the march again. 
General Dawes hurried over from his bank and 
read the riot act to the tremulous guardians of 
public interests. And as he roared his admo¬ 
nitions and lashed all mischievous politicians who 
tried to interfere with the divinely ordained ex¬ 
ploitation of the foolish many by the wise few, 
a friendly reporter slipped over to me and whis¬ 
pered: “There goes your story. This Dawes stuff 
will take all the space and kill the other. That’s 
what it’s for.” So it happened that no further 
evidence was received and the commission was 
able to raise rates without the impediment of any 
impartial, scientific testimony whatsoever in the 
record. 

No community is so stupid that it would select 
a merchant, banker, clergyman, or plasterer — 
a butcher, baker or candlestick-maker — and 
authorize him to go into the community power¬ 
house and push buttons and throw switches ac¬ 
cording to his “common sense,” or according to 
the “divine revelation” of a book on light and 
heat written a thousand years before the discovery 
of electricity. If any one of these persons, not 
225 



Tents of the Mighty 


having even a rudimentary knowledge of electri¬ 
cal phenomena or machinery, should proclaim 
to an ordinarily dull audience that he could op¬ 
erate the power-house more efficiently than the 
engineer in charge, he would probably be laughed 
at. In an alert community he might even be put 
under observation in a psychopathic hospital. As 
men come to realize more and more the individual 
and social danger that lies in permitting the igno¬ 
rant to meddle with scientific problems, they 
must come to rely more and more upon scientific 
advice and to insist more and more vehe¬ 
mently upon receiving the advice of incorrupt¬ 
ible searchers for truth — and upon declining 
the advice either of the untrained, or of the 
dishonorable who sell their scientific training in 
the service of dull-minded greed. 

The men who know must run the show. Al¬ 
ready we recognize that the physical mechanisms 
of the modern world must be constructed and 
operated by men who know how to construct and 
operate them. To some extent even the decisions 
as to where, how and when to utilize these physi¬ 
cal mechanisms are being made by men of special 
competence. And so in every field of industrial, 
political or social activity, there is developing a 
226 





New Captains and Old Dreams 


managing class which stands between money and 
muscle. This managing class of scientifically 
trained workers is largely the product of a smaller 
class of pure scientists who have instructed them 
and whose authority they respect. Many of the 
scientifically trained money-makers enjoy playing 
the game more than making money. Some are 
men of real intelligence. Together with the mas¬ 
ter scientists they are capable of creating, and 
inevitably must create, new social ideas. To pro¬ 
tect the interests of their class they must create a 
moral code that will have behind it the substan¬ 
tial authority that underlies any generally ac¬ 
cepted moral code, the authority of a group that 
possesses the knowledge upon which men without 
knowledge, but needing guidance, must rely; 
and that has the vision upon which men without 
vision, but needing inspiration, must rely. This 
moral code must contain the principle of noblesse 
oblige — that forbids men really inspired by noble 
purposes to descend to ignoble means. 

In ancient days, thinking men were apt to be 
mystical. Out of much thinking and few facts 
they produced moral codes and articles of faith. 
They postulated a crude and cruel human life in 
a “vale of tears” as the prelude to a better life 
227 





Tents of the Mighty 


Beyond. Unable to justify life for its own sake, 
they placed it in the Great Scheme of Things as a 
preliminary stage, the travail out of which would 
be born super-life. They fortified their dreams 
with claims of supernatural powers, divine reve¬ 
lations. They told the children of the world fairy 
stories to make them good. 

The world has dreamed these dreams and 
been content — until the awakening dawn of sci¬ 
ence has revealed gorgeous and terrifying reali¬ 
ties, to those who are a little intelligent. 

The old dreams retain some of their beauty 
and power, but these stupendous realities demand 
also reverent understanding. The real airplane 
stimulates thought more than the unreal magic 
carpet. The real radio, translating the invisible 
and inaudible something in the air round us into 
the music of an orchestra playing a thousand miles 
away, is more inspiring than € ‘angel voices” that 
are never heard. The accents of men long dead 
sound in our ears and they walk before us through 
the sunshine and shadows of bygone days. More 
complete resurrection becomes conceivable. The 
old mysteries of the Unknown recede and new 
mysteries beckon, as brave and eager spirits dare 
death and challenge doubt — and reveal, destroy 
228 





New Captains and Old Dreams 


and utilize the mighty powers of matter invisible 
to the naked eye. Here is the search for ultimate 
authority, for the meaning and purpose of life, 
for the Will of God, beside which the speculations 
and hallucinations of the devout] and learned of 
ancient days seem like the futile gropings of a 
baby in its cradle. 

Out of this ever-inviting, never-ending re¬ 
search of scientific minds, are coming the funda¬ 
mental articles of a vital faith — a faith in the 
divinity of life, a faith in a spiritual product of 
living, to obtain which all the material products 
have value only as means to an immaterial end. 
Out of revealed facts, out of the discovery of 
natural laws that mankind can neither make nor 
break, are now being written the first chapters of 
a Guide to Happiness in which we may put our 
trust. This does not mean that there is no need 
for pure faith; no need for reassuring visions of 
what lies beyond the known. There is a need, 
deep in the human heart, of everlasting hope, of 
consolation in whatever sorrow, and of compen¬ 
sation for whatever pain. But as intelligent men 
seek an authority they can respect, unchanging, 
inevitable, irresistible, so they seek also a faith 
they can respect. They must project their imag- 
229 







Tents of the Mighty 


inations into a world that may come to pass, into 
a world that would be a better world. 

Whatever comfort men who think may seek 
to find in the developments of this century, with 
the biggest, most insane war in history, with its 
shocking exhibitions of the irresponsibility and 
incompetence of its social leadership (before and 
during and since the war), must lie in the reason¬ 
able hope that these leaders will soon pass on and 
that their successors may come from that group 
which thus far in the world’s history has shown 
consistently the greatest capacity to understand 
and to fulfill the responsibilities of leadership. 
This is the group of those who have a hunger for 
knowledge and truth. 

This group has steadily increased the author¬ 
ity of brains, despite the abuse and ridicule of 
authoritative muscle and fat. It has steadily 
diminished the power of force and fraud to rule, 
by steadily increasing its own power to serve. It 
has remade and enlarged the world with every 
generation, although muscle and fat have taken 
most of the credit for the job. The persistent 
growth of the numbers and the authority of this 
group is the most inspiring phenomenon of hu¬ 
man existence; and if today we were on the verge 
230 




New Captains and Old Dreams 


of the transfer of social leadership by common 
consent to this group, we might reasonably be¬ 
lieve that we were on the verge of a spiritual 
development as marvelous as the material devel¬ 
opment of the world in the last hundred years. 

Probably we are not on the verge of any such 



Another leadership has been relentlessly coming on 


transfer of leadership. It would seem too sudden 
and too great a growth in the mental stature and 
social efficiency of man; whereas evolution is a 
slow and gradual process. Yet we may reason¬ 
ably believe that in a few decades, or centuries, 
231 







Tents of the Mighty 


or in a few thousand years, there will be a world 
wherein the authority of members of the govern¬ 
ing class will rest upon their knowledge and use 
of natural laws in creating social controls that 
cannot be profitably evaded, or modified, or 
held unconstitutional; and that will operate equi¬ 
tably upon all persons and at all times. We may 
feel that we are living on the threshold of such a 
world; and we may reasonably hope that if we 
knock, the door will be opened unto us; although 
an aeon may pass before those who see what lies 
beyond will be able to lead mankind across the 
threshold. 


232 





VIII 

J 

THE LONG ROAD UP 



VIII 

THE LONG ROAD UP 

“Explain all that,” said the Mock Turtle. 
“No, no! The adventures first,” said the 
Gryphon in an impatient tone. “Explanations 
take such a dreadful time.” 

Alice in Wonderland 


The editor-Gryphon who told me to write 
this book has had his way — “adventures first 55 — 
but the Mock Turtle is entitled to an explanation. 
Devotees of the immortal Alice will remember 
that the Mock Turtle was once a real Turtle and 
“had the best of educations , 55 which included 
“Reeling and Writhing . . . and then the differ¬ 
ent branches of Arithmetic — Ambition, Dis¬ 
traction, Uglification and Derision . 55 And so, 
during this skipping narrative of political ad¬ 
ventures I have been conscious of the probable 
comments of many a well-educated and disillu¬ 
sioned Mock Turtle, whose life has progressed 
from Ambition through Distraction and Uglifi¬ 
cation to Derision. 


235 



Tents of the Mighty 


“What is the use of repeating all that stuff ? 55 
the Mock Turtle interrupted, “if you don’t ex¬ 
plain it as you go on?” 

A more modern Mock Turtle would probably 
put it this way: What is the big idea? Politics 
doesn’t seem to play an important part in the 
lives of most people. How much are they con¬ 
cerned with a search for political progress? Have 
not Edison and Ford affected the common life 
much more profoundly than Roosevelt and Wil¬ 
son? 

Again Alice in Wonderland provides a text: 
“Tut, tut, child,” said the Duchess. “Every¬ 
thing’s got a moral, if only you can find it.” 
An outstanding fact in the world today is that 
our machinery of social cooperation has not kept 
pace with increasing opportunities for human 
experience. Individual life has not been enriched 
to an extent reasonably comparable with the in¬ 
creased knowledge and wealth available for com¬ 
mon use. 

The “trust-busting” efforts of LaFollette, 
Bryan, Roosevelt and Wilson were intended to 
protect the freedom of the individual, to prevent 
huge private monopolies from ruling our lives, 
determining what we should produce, how 
236 


s 




The Long Road Up 


much money we should make and what prices 
we should pay for necessities. And all through 
these years the c ‘trusts 5 5 increased their power 
and big business grew bigger until billion dollar 
combinations came to control the heat, light, 
power, food, shelter and transportation of a hun¬ 
dred million people. Can we find the moral of 
that? 

Does the record of my generation prove that 
political direction of the general welfare is an 
illusion? Does it show that social cooperation is 
principally a by-product of all-conquering com¬ 
merce? Are the real organizers of society those 
who organize the production and exchange of 
goods and services? Should political government 
merely reflect the wishes of these commercial 
giants, the natural autocrats who will determine 
human destiny, regardless of the futile preaching 
and plotting of romantic men and women who 
idealize the future of mankind? 

These are live questions for which the on¬ 
coming generations must find answers. The 
world leadership of the Harding-Coolidge-Mus- 
solini-Lenin-Baldwin era emphatically rejected 
the idealism of the “progressive 55 school of politi¬ 
cal action. Whether the State should rule corn- 
237 




Tents of the Mighty 

merce (as in Russia) or commerce should rule the 
State (as in America), the commercial State be¬ 
came a fact. The idealized State, whether to 
serve the King, or the Church, or the People, 
appeared to have run its course. Sovereignty, 
by right of purchase, became clothed in righteous¬ 
ness. 

Perhaps we have entered upon a new era of 
human relations. If so, it is well that it should 
be recognized. Perhaps war-weary humanity 
has merely lost for a while the spiritual power to 
deny the flesh its never ending demand for glut¬ 
tony and death. Whatever may be the conclusion 
of our inquiry it does seem a bit worth while to 
review the extraordinary change in political 
control that has come about in twenty-five years 
in the United States, and also to realize its pro¬ 
found effect upon the individual life of every 
man, woman and child in the nation. The dras¬ 
tic changes in private life that may be brought 
about very quickly through political action may 
be shown by one recent example. 

After Theodore Roosevelt had made his ‘ Con¬ 
fession of faith” to the Progressive National Con¬ 
vention of 1912 he rather recklessly invited 
questions, promising to make clear his position 
238 



The Long Road Up 


on any matter not clearly understood. Several 
questions were shouted from the floor and care¬ 
fully answered. Then came a shrill cry from far 
away. The Colonel cupped his hand around his 
one good ear and shouted: “What was that?” 
In a sudden silence the shrill voice shrieked again: 
“What about the liquor question?” Whereupon 
the wearied confessor lost his temper and barked 
out: “Oh, go back to the kindergarten!” 

Apparently the prohibition forces took T. R.’s 
advice. They started a “campaign of education” 
from the cradle to the grave. They studied the 
history of government. They analyzed the re¬ 
alistic methods whereby small persistent groups 
organize the emotions, fears and self-interests of 
others until they are able to make their wishes 
the law of the land. And they carried the liquor 
question from Roosevelt’s kindergarten into the 
Constitution of the United States inside seven 
years. So I think the Colonel’s advice can be 
wisely followed by any group of “reformers” 
who find themselves footsore, weary and dis¬ 
couraged, sternly excluded from the tents of the 
mighty after they have traveled a long way to 
seek a champion for a “noble experiment.” Let 
them go back to the kindergarten and learn how 
239 




Tents of the Mighty 


men become powerful, how governments are 
controlled and how laws are made. 

If national prohibition had been brought 
about in the United States through a mass appeal 
to the idealists to advance the general welfare, 
it might appear that we were nearer the idealized 
State today than in 1912. But in fact prohibition 
was brought about through the very able use of 
the same means whereby special legislation for 
commercial interests has been produced in in¬ 
creasing quantities in recent years. This state¬ 
ment is no reflection on Wayne B. Wheeler 
and his zealous colleagues, but merely a ref¬ 
erence to his own story of the means whereby 
they achieved their ends. 

In other words, we have seen a project that 
for generations gained no ground as a political 
idealism carried through to victory in a few 
years by business men operating the machinery 
of government by purchase. It may well be 
urged that since nation-wide prosperity is essential 
to the success of national business leaders, a busi¬ 
ness control of government would promote gen¬ 
erally a rising standard of living. The guidance 
of manufacturers and bankers, desiring to culti¬ 
vate a sober, industrious, thrifty citizenship may 
240 




The Long Road Up 


lead us, not only to stop drinking intoxicating 
liquors, but also to cease consuming tobacco and 
candy and pastries. 

Eventually they may cut our lawful consump¬ 
tion of meat and gasoline and chewing gum and 
cosmetics down to a more temperate quantity. 
They may substitute individual gymnastics for 
baseball games, prize fights, races and similar 
second hand methods of enjoying athletic exer¬ 
cises. They may even provide us with nutritious 
food, durable clothing, well-built homes and 
educative entertainment, in place of the prevail¬ 
ing shoddy products. It is entirely possible to 
assume that the business leadership of the future 
may accept more and more of a parental respon¬ 
sibility toward the population which it governs, 
and proceed to lengthen the average life and to 
increase its physical comfort. 

Yet even this noble prospect has unhappy pos¬ 
sibilities. Everywhere we observe that mere 
physical well-being does not satisfy the human 
animal. The unreasonable appetites and desires 
of childhood persist into maturity. We find men 
and women perversely doing all kinds of things 
which they know are unwise, largely because they 
were not allowed to do them as children. Even 
241 




Tents of the Mighty 


under the beneficent political rule whereby in¬ 
toxicating liquors have become very expensive 
and of poor quality, we find millions of people 
wasting their money and injuring their health by 
indulging in forbidden fruit juices. Perhaps 
science may yet be called upon to aid the com¬ 
mercial State to control its citizenship by man¬ 
datory operations upon the glands of law-breakers 
which will convert them into at least docile, even 
if less interesting, neighbors. 

Thus, observing the complexities of modern 
life and the general incompetence of specialists 
outside their limited field of work, I come to the 
conclusion that whatever politicians are selected 
for ostensible control of government, they may 
yet be forced by public opinion to seek the guid¬ 
ance of men who are able to get the facts and are 
determined to declare them; who have neither 
a creed nor a profit to maintain by falsehood or 
concealment. If chambers of commerce, manu¬ 
facturers and merchants associations are to name 
the office holders, they might pledge their candi¬ 
dates to obtain scientific advice as to what we 
should do and why we should do it before they 
tell us what to do. If we are to be commanded 
by law to reach for cigarettes instead of for bon- 
242 



The Long Road Up 


bons, let the lawmakers first be advised whether 
it is better to save the lungs or the stomach, or 
desirable to save both, or neither. And so long 
as reasonable doubt exists concerning what the 
law should be, let us hope that they will be willing 
to let nature take its course. 

On the other hand, if the idealists propose 
higher income and inheritance taxes, let the law¬ 
makers be advised, after careful research and 
scientific weightings of the averages, whether the 
community benefit is greater from building more 
roads, parks, sewers and other public works, in 
the wasteful manner typical of political opera¬ 
tions, or from providing more motor cars, Euro¬ 
pean trips and private golf courses for that 
4 ‘conspicuous waste,” which is typical of the 
leisure class. Experimental periods of ten years 
might be announced, in which public institutions 
and private foundations might compete for the 
right to spend the surplus income of the com¬ 
munity during the succeeding ten years. Thus 
public and private efficiency in expenditure could 
be stimulated. 

These fantastic suggestions are presented, 
merely to indicate that the idea of scientific guid¬ 
ance of public affairs is not offered on the assump- 
243 





Tents of the Mighty 


tion that any particular theory of government 
or program of social justice would thereby be 
advanced. Indeed it is my individual convic¬ 
tion, arising out of long participation in political 
struggles between “progressive” and “conserva¬ 
tive” forces, that each group has been saved from 
speedy self-destruction in its days of power by 
the unrelenting opposition of the other. A tri¬ 
umphant majority always demonstrates its in¬ 
competence more quickly when the minority is 
too weak to slow up the exhibition. (Observe 
the process of “reconstruction” after the Civil 
War and the World War.) 

But still the question arises: Granting that 
majorities and minorities of the past have coun¬ 
seled with error and been led by prejudice, grant¬ 
ing that statesmen ought to learn the facts and 
then apply the laws of human conduct and social 
relations, who can state the facts and proclaim 
the laws? Social science is in its infancy. Its 
master minds have as yet found few laws. Their 
disagreements upon fundamental principles are 
so irreconcilable that if the authority of one is 
acknowledged, it seems that all the others must 
be held unworthy of public confidence. There 
appear to be some fairness and merit in this 
244 




The Long Road Up 


criticism — until one reads again the history of 
the natural sciences. Then it is made clear that 
as the scientific method gains public confidence 
the achievements of scientific workers grow like¬ 
wise in merit. Until men are willing to give the 
scientists free rein to theorize, experiment, prove 
and disprove, only meager results can be ex¬ 
pected; and the difficulty of distinguishing be¬ 
tween scientists and charlatans will persist. Until 
astronomy became respectable the astronomer 
and the astrologer could hardly be distinguished 
and the merits of their diverse counsels could be 
easily confused. And so today the “expert” 
adviser of modern governments may be scientist, 
fanatic, fool or knave. Until expert advice gen¬ 
erally commands attention, it will be difficult to 
distinguish science from quackery and to appraise 
the merits of contesting scientific theories. 

There is already a formidable amount of 
exact and serviceable knowledge available but 
unused in determining public policy. There is 
hardly an important question now being dragged 
through the mud of political controversy which 
could not be cleaned up and operated on with 
beneficial results by a scientific clinic. Consider 
the illumination resulting from applying the best 
245 




Tents of the Mighty 


available information to almost any political issue 
in answer to these questions: 

1. Why are we doing what we do? 

2. Why should we do something 
else? 

3. How are we doing what we 
do? 

4. How can we do something else? 

5. What is the result of doing what 
we are doing? 

6. What will be the result of doing 
something else? 

Apply these queries to the treatment of a 
crime — such as theft. 

1. Do we punish for retaliation or 
prevention? 

2. Would preventive punishments 
be more useful than retaliatory 
measures are? 

3. Are we using mental or physical 
pain, or both, for punishment? 

4. Can we use fear of pain for 
prevention; or other fears; or 
desires; or the removal of causes 
in enviroment or in the individ¬ 
ual? 


246 



The Long Road Up 


5. Are we now obtaining satisfac¬ 
tory security from theft, at a 
reasonable price? 

6. Could we obtain more security 
at greater or less cost by other 
methods? 

These are (or should be) very puzzling ques¬ 
tions for the average voter or politician to answer. 
They have not been easy of scientific answer. Yet 
every one of them can be answered today with 
an authoritative assurance that damns the penal 
codes of these United States as survivals of medie¬ 
val superstition, cruelty and ignorance. 

Critics of scientific theory and method have 
always delighted to point out the gaps in scientific 
knowledge, the unexplored fields, the unknown 
areas, the mist-hidden spaces all around a little 
lighted spot. It should be conceded that exact 
information is always fragmentary. Yet out of 
a thousand such fragments can be built a fact — 
a thing that will work always exactly in the same 
way under the same conditions — something 
which can be made and used — something by 
which life can be enriched — and men of com¬ 
merce can get rich! 

Such a thing is the radio. Consider all the 
247 




Tents of the Mighty 


scientific facts that were used in its construction 
— and also the wide margin of experimentation 
necessary to produce the early models and the 
continual improvements which have followed (to 
the delight of the manufacturers and the exas¬ 
peration of their customers!). But imagine for 
a moment the scorn that would have been heaped 
on a political scientist who had sought to install 
a radio-like government in some City Hall! The 
squeaking and squawking of the first model would 
have been sufficient to cause a return to the 
“government of our fathers” at the next election, 
when the reformer’s machine would have been 
hurled into the ash-can by a two-thirds majority 
of indignant citizens. Yet how are we ever going 
to get rid of the oil lamp, oil stove governments 
of our grandfathers, if we never let the political 
scientists experiment with electric light and power 
devices for improving social control and coopera¬ 
tion? 

We need not expect to develop a trained class 
of supermen to rule the world. We need not 
expect through priestly scientists to hear the voice 
of God; or to receive our political command¬ 
ments written on tables of stone with the finger of 
Omniscience. But we can reasonably expect to 
248 




The Long Road Up 


find counselors for public service who have no 
self-interest great enough to overbalance their 
devotion to their life work of discovering truths. 
And we can reasonably expect from such coun¬ 
selors (as I suggested in my address at the dedi¬ 
cation of the Harper Memorial Library) “that 
they may wisely separate belief from trust; that 
they may distinguish fact and assertion; that they 
may not mistake dullness for depth; that they 
may never become too learned to learn; that 
they may ever apply to the written word the 
touchstone of humanism; that their minds may 
not broaden only into shallow waters nor 
deepen only into narrow channels; that they 
may choose Faith as their guide and Service as 
their aim.” 

The stimulating effect of merely adopting a 
scientific attitude toward public service would 
be incalculable. The passion for truth and the 
desire to find heaven always produce results 
amazing to the materialist, to whom the supreme 
incentives are a passion for money and a desire 
to own the world. Those who operate public 
services for private profit — whether grafting 
politicians or business dictators — cannot be ex¬ 
pected to foresee the common gain that would 
249 





Tents of the Mighty 


be realized out of a government dominated by 
the scientific spirit. Yet, if they could be induced 
to read histories of the sixteenth century, when 
natural science and protestantism were struggling 
for the sanction of respectability, and to compare 
living conditions then and now, perhaps even they 
might begin to see by what forces the world has 
been transformed. 

If those who now glorify the commercial State 
could be induced to study only the social history 
of western civilization in the last hundred years, 
they might learn that neither the soldiers, the 
money-lenders, the politicians, nor even the giant 
money-makers have been giving humanity its 
vast increase of power to control, produce and 
distribute things that satisfy and enlarge human 
desires. They might learn that the creators of 
the modern world have not been men who gave 
orders and sought to enforce them by threats and 
blows. Nor has this creative class tried to control 
the police power, or to use armies and navies to 
compel obedience to its commands. It has not 
sought to hypnotize weak minds with childish 
fears of a black abyss and unending torment, or 
with childish hopes of pink clouds and everlast¬ 
ing satiety. It has not required debasing political 
250 



The Long Road Up 


campaigns, or religious orgies, or degrading wars, 
to endow it with power. 

This genuinely “progressive 55 leadership of 
humanity today is composed of the men who 
understand the construction and operation of the 
intricate mechanisms and complicated chemical 
combinations out of which has been created in 
fifty years a new world. It is composed of men 
who know something about the sociology and 
biology which are essential to intelligent living in 
this new world — a world which the “belly-best 55 
minds did not create, cannot analyze and do not 
understand. It is a world of extra-human powers 
and superhuman forces, discovered and made 
susceptible to human control (within our mental 
limitations) by the scientific servants of mankind 
who alone are competent to direct the utilization 
of such powers and forces. The World War and 
the years that followed offer ample proof that 
the vestigial leadership of the prosperity era is 
utterly incompetent to rule this new world — 
even though it has thus far concealed its lack of 
adequate knowledge or worthy purpose from the 
mob which it has led, and is still leading, politi¬ 
cally, through disaster and deflation to Futility. 

But, it may not be expected that men of sci- 

251 






Tents of the Mighty 


entific training and intelligence will organize a 
clan or a union to deprive the present political 
and social leadership of its power or to nullify its 
authority. Nor is it likely that masses of humble 
folk will rise in rebellion against incompetence 
and demand leaders more worthy of their respect. 
Spontaneous mutinies of followers are not fre¬ 
quent in history. One governing class succeeds 
another. A worn-out social leadership is over¬ 
thrown by a more vigorous one. So the incom¬ 
petence of the present leadership gives only 
ground for hope that its successor may soon arise 
out of a better qualified class of society. 

Against the rising authority of scientific leader¬ 
ship probably no group will fight longer and 
harder than the lawyers who have become more 
and more the chief protectors of the powers 
that be. 

The profession of the law, being peculiarly 
unscientific in origin, growth and practice, will 
naturally continue to urge and to contrive that 
final authority in the state shall be reposed in 
the executors of dead generations instead of in 
their living heirs. It will be necessary for social 
scientists to destroy many venerated legal prin¬ 
ciples before a new scientific leadership can be 
252 




The Long Road Up 


set free to enforce its moral code. In the mean¬ 
time policemen’s clubs will pound skulls that 
harbor strange ideas and the head of many a 
social scientist will be bloody if not bowed. 

Yet legal precepts depend so much upon pre- / 
vailing habits of mind that a little shift in 
opinion may undermine the foundations of a vast 
structure of law, and happily overwhelm the less 
agile lawyers in the ruins of their house of words 
and phrases. In the succinct language of Mr. Jus¬ 
tice Holmes: “We do not realize how large a 
part of our law is open to reconsideration upon a 
slight change in the habit of the public mind.” 

Consider, for example, the legal conception 
of property. A certain absolute dominion over 
things which are needed for the maintenance and 
development of individual life, is essential to 
individual freedom. The elaborate safeguards 
for property rights provided in the Constitution 
of the United States were wise measures to secure 
the blessings of liberty — in the conditions of life 
in America in the eighteenth century. But the 
rights of property which must be upheld in order 
to maintain individual liberty depend upon the 
economic conditions which prevail — not upon 
any everlasting principle. If twenty families 
253 




Tents of the Mighty 


owned all the land in America, freedom for a 
hundred million people could not be maintained 
under laws supporting our present rights of 
property. When the property rights of the few 
become destructive of the liberties of the many, 
these property rights must be modified. Even 
under our Constitution, interpreted by a con¬ 
servative Supreme Court, this principle has been 
recognized in the sustaining of laws to regulate 
monopolies. Even laws regulating rents have 
been upheld in times of emergency. 

Students of the law recognize, as a matter of 
theory, that there is no such thing as an absolute 
right of property, that £ property 5 5 as a legal term 
means a 4 ‘bundle of rights” which may be in¬ 
creased or diminished by the lawmakers accord¬ 
ing to the requirements of the general welfare. 
But, as a matter of practice, lawyers are wedded 
to the notion that the quantity of property which 
is possessed or controlled should not affect the 
rights of the owner or user. Against this fallacy 
the social scientists will be forced to wage relent¬ 
less war. Democratic government cannot endure, 
individual liberty cannot be maintained, under 
laws whereby the political government, in order 
to protect property rights, must support an auto- 
254 




The Long Road Up 


cratic control over the lives of the people and 
over the development of the physical resources of 
the nation by privately selected operators of vast 
properties. 

Socialism demands the public selection of 
these property controllers, which would ratify 
the fundamental wrong of autocratic control, on 
the dubious theory that the social responsibility 
of the autocrats will thereby be increased. But 
socialism thus assures us of the end of individual 
liberty. We abandon the freedom of the small 
property owner in order to escape the tyranny of 
the large property owner. There is another 
means of escape that may be worthy of at least a 
trial. 

As the quantity of property under individual 
control increases, the owner’s social responsibility 
might be likewise increased as a matter of law. 
Public obligations might well be imposed in exact 
proportion to the public interest. The owner of 
an eighty-acre farm, or a little shop, may operate 
his property — may 6 Tun his business” — to suit 
himself. The public is chiefly interested in pro¬ 
tecting this owner’s individual freedom —in pre¬ 
serving the independence of his life that makes 
him a free and self-respecting citizen. But the 
255 




Tents of the Might/ 


owner of eighty thousand acres has the power to 
give a thousand men employment and an oppor¬ 
tunity to earn a living, or to deny them that op¬ 
portunity, or to grant it only on oppressive terms. 
Is not the public more interested in opening up 
opportunities for freedom to a thousand men than 
in preserving the arbitrary freedom of one man? 
In like manner the operation of any great business 
involves the public interest, in the opportunities 
for the employment of thousands of men which 
provide them with the means of individual lib¬ 
erty, and in the opportunities for the satisfaction 
of community needs. Surely the community has 
a claim against the owners for a wholesome use 
of property rights which is at least as valid as the 
claim of the owners for a wholesome protection 
of their property rights by the community. 

No simple formula of regulation will provide 
for the appropriate scientific determination of 
property rights in the public interest. No simple 
machinery of regulation will provide for the en¬ 
forcement of the suggested public obligations. 
But the principle upon which property law suited 
to modern conditions must be based is fairly 
clear. 

The absolute control of the individual over 
256 





The Long Road Up 


his own property, which is held for personal use, 
should be preserved so far as there is no direct 
interference with the public health, safety and 
welfare. The control of an individual over the 
properties of others is already limited by law 
under the obligations which follow a trusteeship. 
In like manner, and supplementing such obliga¬ 
tions, it may well be established that, when an 
individual owns or controls properties for general 
or public uses in such a quantity as to create a 
substantial public interest in the management, 
he should be held to the appropriate obligations 
of a trustee of this public interest. 

At the present time, if public regulation is 
ordained by a legislative act, the courts will sol¬ 
emnly inquire: “Is this property affected with a 
public interest?” And then the courts (without 
even a wink to indicate a sense of the ridiculous) 
may solemnly declare that a business employing 
thousands of men and supplying articles of com¬ 
mon use to millions of people is not “affected with 
a public interest.” Of course, these judges only 
mean that in their opinion there is not enough 
public interest to justify public regulation — a 
question which in the future should be answered 
by those scientifically qualified with present day 
257 




Tents of the Might/ 


knowledge, and not by moralists (on the bench or 
in the pulpit) who quote the ignorance of their 
ancestors in order to conceal their own. 

Of course, while scientific leadership is ex¬ 
ploding doubts in the public mind, and blasting 
its way through the prejudices which have been 
created by captains of industry and their lawyer 
lieutenants, it must combat another power that 
through all recorded history has claimed a mo¬ 
nopoly right to reveal the truth. Against the 
patient and truly “God-fearing” man, who seeks 
guidance from a man-made lamp of knowledge, 
who is inspired by a real faith in the upward 
course of human destiny and an ennobling trust 
in the beneficence of creation, is ever raised the 
heavy hand and megaphonic voice of the rash, 
self-appointed spokesman of Eternal Truth. Cen¬ 
turies before the astronomer could unveil the 
heavens with a telescope and the geologist could 
uncover the messages of bygone ages engraved 
on the rocks, this reckless teacher told his slow- 
witted pupils just how and when the world was 
made. Centuries before it could be proved that 
Earth was a sphere floating in space, this spokes¬ 
man assured mankind that its world was flat. 

Through all the ages this spokesman has laid 
258 




The Long Road Up 


down the law of the One Way whereby guidance 
through the perplexities of life might be obtained. 
An altar should be built which should be of 
stone, overlaid with pure gold; and from the al¬ 
tar must rise the smoke of burnt offerings and the 
fumes of incense; and in front of the altar must 
kneel an anointed spokesman clad in gorgeous 
raiment, and thus to be distinguished from a 
common man; and then in answer to prayers 
thus transmitted through the One Way Up, guid¬ 
ance would come through the One Way Down 
and the spokesman would deliver a tiny fragment 
of Eternal Truth — and no more could be ob¬ 
tained and none could be obtained in any other 
way. 

And through all the centuries, notwithstand¬ 
ing the persistent opposition of all the professional 
spokesmen of Eternal Truth, men of scientific 
purpose have been seeking and finding truths in 
the bowels of earth and the breathless spaces of 
the sky, in the mountain avalanche and the 
dust on a butterfly’s wing, in the procession 
of the planets and the movement of a microbe. 
The spokesmen have denounced and harassed 
the scientists and stifled them when they could; 
and the scientists have ignored the spokesmen or 
259 





Tents of the Mighty 


brushed them aside or trampled over them, seek¬ 
ing to increase knowledge by whatever way was 
possible, but avoiding the One Way which was 
impossible; and so they have steadily advanced 
on the long road that really does lead up to 
truth. 

It may be that intelligence is itself an illusion; 
that fact is evil and reality is the supreme deceit. 
But so long as intelligence produces more of the 
things that seem good to humanity and reduces 
the number of things that seem bad, intelligent 
persons will continue to assume a right and per¬ 
haps a duty to lead those of less mental experience 
or capacity. And they must usually regard cer¬ 
tainties as stronger ropes than guesses, and facts 
as better building stones than fancies. 

Intelligent men cannot actually believe that 
which they know to be untrue, or believe that 
truth can be reversed or overthrown by any 
power, or believe that the supernatural has no 
law, or that an after-world of chaos and whim 
would be an improvement upon a world of law. 
The vision of heaven as a superior nursery, in 
which infantile omnipotence smashes the toys 
which displease it, may have been natural in 
the cradle of humanity but it is a little beneath 
260 




The Long Road Up 


the intelligence of boys and girls who are old 
enough to go to school, in the twentieth century. 

In the babyhood of the world, when the un¬ 
restrained satisfaction of desire seemed the su- 
premity of happiness, Deity would naturally 
appear as the Lawless Law Giver — source of all 
compulsions and subject to none. But when the 
greater majesty of Deity as Law Itself is revealed 
to the imaginative searcher for truth, the demand 
that he shall worship a Lawless Law Giver be¬ 
comes a grotesque insult. To turn aside from the 
search for the Law of the world to bow down to 
deified lawlessness is not merely to be silly, but 
to repudiate one’s real Faith and to assert: “I 
believe that which I am convinced must be un¬ 
true.” 

There is no conflict between science and a 
faith which comprehends trust in the Unknown. 
There is an inevitable conflict between science 
and a religion which comprehends belief in the 
Untrue. The scientist who aspires to be the voice 
of visible, irresistible authority should not seek 
at the same time to be the voice of invisible and 
resistible authority. The pseudo-scientist who 
drags the semblance of his God onto the platform 
to speak in behalf of the unauthorized command 
261 





Tents of the Mighty 


of a political, religious, social or commerical or¬ 
ganization, is an apostate priest, whose science 
is probably as badly adulterated as his religion. 
He will not lead us far, although he may be with 
us for a long, long time. 

It seems evident from a review of the en¬ 
trenched forces which must be overthrown before 
scientific counselors can be elevated to supreme 
authority in government, that no sudden change 
in political control, no rapid evolution from emo¬ 
tional democracy to intelligent democracy, is to 
be expected. A return to soldier control, or 
priest control, of the State (except as a brief 
episode) seems quite unlikely. They have been 
thoroughly tried and found wanting. But an 
increase in commercial control seems most prob¬ 
able before the materialist rulers (following the 
fighting idealists and the praying idealists) dem¬ 
onstrate in their turn their ultimate incompetence. 
Since one world war did not provide this demon¬ 
stration, perhaps another, greater world war — or 
perhaps the suffocation of a world peace (main¬ 
tained by the oppression of a world dictatorship) 
— may be needed to educate the masses of hu¬ 
manity to a new love for the truth that sets men 
free. 


262 




The Long Road Up 


One conclusion alone comes to me with as¬ 
surance after seeking to define and understand 
the forces which I have watched struggling for 
the mastery of men’s minds and bodies. The 
test of a “progressive” in politics during the 
next generation seems clearly revealed. He who 
seeks to go forward in social relations, to improve 
the machinery and operation of government to 
an extent comparable with our recent progress 
in the development and control of physical 
things and powers, must counsel with the natural 
scientists who have created a new material world 
and with the social scientists who have shown 
some capacity for the creation of a new social 
world. At least the “progressive” leadership of 
future politics must be willing to move with, and 
unwilling to move without, a well-established 
consensus of scientific opinion as to the most 
desirable course of experimentation. 

Such a respect for the scientific attitude toward 
problems of public service necessarily requires the 
constant guarding of freedom of thought and 
speech; the protection of individual and collec¬ 
tive experiments in a better way of living. In¬ 
deed, progressive thought must hold these 
freedoms to be of first importance, the social 
263 




Tents of the Mighty 


necessities that correspond to the body needs for 
food and drink and rest. To the extent that the 
individual is free to think and to exchange views, 
to experiment with his own life, and in groups 
with group life — to that extent only is social ad¬ 
vance made possible. Of course, restraints upon 
a theoretical freedom are required to create and 
to preserve the greatest quantity of actual free¬ 
dom. But if such restraints are declared and 
administered scientifically through democratic 
processes, they will be, in fact, only self-restraints 
whereby progress will not be handicapped. It is 
the censorship of ignorance and prejudice em¬ 
ployed to suppress intelligence from which the 
world has suffered most. 

The “progressive” in the future, as usually in 
the past, will be found in the forefront of every 
struggle to get the facts and to publish them to¬ 
gether with every possible interpretation of their 
significance. He will be found eagerly listening 
to criticisms of the established order and discuss¬ 
ing radical changes which are proposed or being 
tried — not because he is fault-finding and de¬ 
structive by nature, but because his ambitions 
are essentially constructive and he sees only 
drudgery in the mere reproduction tomorrow of 
264 




The Long Road Up 


the life of today. He wants to know what is weak 
and “wrong 55 and then to experiment to find 
something stronger and more nearly “right . 55 

The “progressive 55 turns his thought upon 
government and sees a machinery of cooperative 
power, whereby men may work together to en¬ 
rich and make more satisfying their individual 
lives —just as life in a harmonious household has 
more substance and flavor than life alone. He 
sees this cooperative power to improve the general 
welfare being wasted and diverted to special uses 
— to enrich limited groups, to support private 
powers that may or may not be used to advance 
the common good. These are wrongs that he 
yearns to abolish, and in the enthusiasm of youth 
he may insist on launching a frontal attack upon 
them. But if increasing years bring a better un¬ 
derstanding of their cause, without discourage¬ 
ment, he will learn that they will continue until 
a substantial majority of the people learn, first, 
that a better way of living is possible, second, how 
the existing scheme of things deprives them of 
this better life, and third, how a system can be 
organized and operated that will aid them to 
advance. So a scientific plan is needed and then 
education to obtain a majority sanction, not only 
265 




Tents of the Mighty 


to experiment, but to fail and to improve until 
at last the new social mechanism can be operated 
successfully. 

Thus political reform may be a slow process, 
but one of permanent achievement. For the 
beginnings of social research indicate that only 
by such a union of science and democracy can 
we reasonably expect to develop a political sci¬ 
ence able to guide a government suited to the 
human beings whom natural science has already 
endowed with superhuman powers. 

So the c progressive 5 5 of the coming generations 
may be less impatient than his forebears; he may 
be less willing to fight for a reform which may 
be an illusion, less willing to try to make men good 
or efficient by passing a law, less willing to attack 
established error with a conscript army — un¬ 
disciplined and uncertain of the merit of its lead¬ 
ers or their plan. But of the importance of one 
governmental policy he may feel well assured; 
and be determined to accept no substitute: Po¬ 
litical force, the massed power of all the people, 
shall not be used to suppress the aspirations and 
to destroy the work of those faithful, scientific 
servants of mankind, whose patient labors, whose 
free imagination and unrestrained energy, must 
266 





The Long Road Up 


be relied upon to generate the power of increasing 
knowledge that lifts humanity from the level of 
one generation to the higher level of the next, 
where fathers and mothers wish to see their chil¬ 
dren dwell. 


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